I was having a conversation with a friend this afternoon and we were talking about our favorite poetry … As the conversation lingered we came to some points of consensus. We both cold mot live without poetry. And moreover, sometimes, especially in the darkest periods of our lives we are drawn in particular to poems. Poems express emotions that there are no words for. When we don’t feel like reading, there are always the gifts of these kind of metaphors. Poetry feeds our souls in these moments in ways nothing else can.
I think there is a Mary Oliver poem for every occasion and for today this is mine. Thank goodness for this gem. I have to be no less than what I am. This is enough. I am enough.
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
