O is for Oliver

I reviewed 'Twelve Moons' by Mary Oliver only a few weeks ago but wanted to include Wild Geese in my A to Z, so here it is, twice. As I have commented before poetry is an oral medium, hearing it read is such a different experience, and so enhances the meaning.

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 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.




(Linking back to the A to Z Challenge)