You do not have to be good

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.

"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver, Dreamwork

photograph by Karin Rosenthal

Comments

[Lamamamajama]

I just had a flashback of being in Elaine's writing group. I love that poem and Mary Oliver. Love the photo too.
The world seems so split to me lately, good and evil, happy and sad, etc. It's like we can dwell in all the craziness that is happening or see all the good that is here. I'm trying to feel out that edge of being aware of both the madness and the beauty but not getting stuck in either, ending up disillusioned as to the true nature of this planet.
Anyhow, my blog turned political this week as my MIL has been sending out political stuff in all the "family" updates. Mostly they just passivly bash my lifestyle. I had to get a little retaliation going by posting the Colorado State Seal with a fascist image on it. MIL thinks environmentalists are Communists.
Hope you're well!

[shamash]

"trying to feel out that edge of being aware of both the madness and the beauty but not getting stuck in either"

this, my dear friend, is the story of what I've been trying to do all of my life. It's a crazy edge to walk.

Now that you mention it, we DID read this poem in Elaine's writing group. I remember! I knew this poems years before Taos: a friend of mine memorized it, and recited it at one of our campfires while camping. I immediately bought "Dreamwork" when I returned from the mountains.

Pirate found a copy of this poem that someone accidentally left in a UNM printer, so he sent it to me. It's one of my favorite poems, and from time to time it keeps showing up in my life.

I wonder where I'll be when it shows up next.