Sunday, December 31, 2017

At Year's End




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




5 comments:

Miss_Yves said...

A Happy New Year to you and yours !

Anvilcloud said...

I thought that sounded like Mary Oliver whom Sue reads. I like poetry but just don't get around to it.

jennyfreckles said...

How beautiful. I'm delighting in having the time to do what I love and gradually allowing that to be more of who I am. Here's to another year of exploration.

Barbara Rogers said...

One of my favorites of Mary Oliver...thanks for letting me ground with it this morning! May you all have a happy blessed New Year! And let's raise a glass to the positive changes that will be coming around the corner.

Jime said...

So it does and so am I. Thank you Vicki for a year of wisdom and hope.