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 your 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.
Wild Geese
~Mary Oliver
I walked out this morning just in time to capture these geese flying in skein. I heard them before I saw them - their nasally honks announcing the approach. It's a bitter cold morning, but my heart is warmed by the familiarity and constancy of the world around me. Life is good and hard and beautiful and unfair. It is both too long and not long enough. December fills my heart with abounding joy and heavy sadness. I know and accept this. I know it because I live it and I accept it because there is no other way. The world goes on, my body grows soft and yet my mind still dreams. Dreams big. Isn't it amazing?
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 your 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.
Wild Geese
~Mary Oliver
I walked out this morning just in time to capture these geese flying in skein. I heard them before I saw them - their nasally honks announcing the approach. It's a bitter cold morning, but my heart is warmed by the familiarity and constancy of the world around me. Life is good and hard and beautiful and unfair. It is both too long and not long enough. December fills my heart with abounding joy and heavy sadness. I know and accept this. I know it because I live it and I accept it because there is no other way. The world goes on, my body grows soft and yet my mind still dreams. Dreams big. Isn't it amazing?
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