You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver (from Dream Work)
In March, whatever one is doing and wherever one happens to be, she is always tuned to the heavens and waiting for the return of the great geese to northern skies. Mary Oliver's perfect poem says it all, and I never tire of reading it.
7 comments:
I love this poem. Truth of life and beauty of nature abound.
We are not alone. Nature is ever present. The wild geese are calling and my imagination welcomes the wildness.
Daily my imagination weaves the worlds gifts among lifes challenges to create touchstones of hope.
Thanks for the reminder....
This poem does paint how nature renews us again and again if only we look and listen. That photo is stupendous, it almost looks as though taken from a plane.
A beautiful photo and one of my favourite poems. Thank you, Cate.
I love that poem, it's in a collection of Mary Oliver's poems that I own. The photo is perfect to go with it.
Just yesterday I was watching a line of geese in the sky while washing up the lunch dishes.
it brings to mind the old Frankie Laine song.."My heart goes where the wild goose goes"
anyone else out there old enough to remember that?
speaking of 'old'.. today is my birthday. seems like through the years it's always been sunny and clear on this day.. makes me so happy.
I love Mary Oliver. The only thing better than reading her poetry is listening to her read it. Thanks for the lovely post.
ahhhhh...the geese, the sky, these words, this vast and amazing world.
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