Saturday, January 01, 2011

A Poem

Wild Geese

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.

- from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

2 comments:

Elizabeth Marie said...

I so love Mary Oliver, so love this poem. I especially like, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves."

nà from the treehouse said...

I have this poem on a piece of paper that you gave me several years ago. I love it lots. Thank you for it then, thank you for it now.

I just set up the collective writing blog project. I'm inviting you to participate as a co-author. Would you like to?
It's at www.26n.blogspot.com
Let me know.
Hugs all round xxx