«wild geese»
last night i watched the brilliant meryl streep read this poem in the PBS brodcast of the Prairie Home Companion season finale and Independence Day Special and i couldn't help imagining that it had been chosen just for me...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 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 by mary oliver, winner of the Pulitzer Price
and the National Book Award for her poetry.
