Wild Geese

photo from flickr

Twice in the last week, Vivian and I heard the blaring honk of Canadian geese flying overhead while we sat, surrounded by chalk dust and collections of fallen leaves on the front porch.

Once in the past week, we walked around the lake with Canadian geese. They were oblivious to us.

Three times over the weekend I stumbled upon a reference to these words or the words themselves, and I wondered Where have you been all my life?


Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

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.