Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Wild Geese















When I pay attention, I realize that certain things show up in my life over and over. Lately, I've noticed that this poem by Mary Oliver is one of those things:

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles, 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 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.

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