17th February 2012 Friday
Because I’m weary and because my heart is too sad tonight I’ll let Mary Oliver say it for me in WILD GEESE. I love this poem - it sustains me - it feels like a prayer and a blessing too.....
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.
© Mary Oliver
Yes, a beautiful poem. Two friends have quoted it to me at different times in my life, when I guess they thought I was trying too hard to be 'good', or repenting for something, when all I needed to do was love, and the world carries on, the rivers running, the trees growing, the geese flying.
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