Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

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 clear 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.

A response to "The Journey"

It was a wild night
The wind cut - so cold
it froze warm blooded breaths.
I wrapped the red cloak tighter
around me thinking, "Yes it is wretched
but it is better. Ah! how good and sweet
it is - at last - to feel."

Feel what? Something.
Anything real. Anything
other than the dull, heavy drumbeat
of ought's to do and ought's to be,
should have done, should have been.
Something softer, something cooler -
than the fiery agitation endlessly driving
the crowd toward suicidal comparison.

At first it was tempting
to see it as an emptiness
a desert of vast loneliness
(departing).
But further down the road alone I discovered
I was being discovered.
And feeling those hands
Carefully peeling off my masks
touching things buried, long putrid and dead
I gave myself wholly over to
this holy unknown friend.

I was stripped down to my nakedness
but no longer did I feel the icy wind
Possessions melted to nothing but
the edges of eternity before me
did beautifully extend.
And as the night gave way to dawn
my whole being gave birth to song.

A Poem by Mary Oliver

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save

sky

The blue sky above me is breaking
into fragments of sun, dark gray, and green,
while I lay with my back upon the grass
looking upward through the trees.
Cracks from branches stretch jaggedly
as if they were jaggedly stretching,
scratching, the insides of me.
There is no method or madness to their beauty
and although they appear broken
they carry life to tender leaves.

Wilderness God*

It was your idea to take me out of the city,
hedging me in with thorns
so I would not - desperate -
cling to lovers who did not love.

You led me to the unknown

Out of ignorance into wilderness
where my cry no longer was suffocated
under striving, smoke, or steel.

To stand alone before you
to bow, to learn only
that it is You alone I should fear.

To a barren place,
starving me out of compulsion, craving
inner prisons that made me slave to
what the city needs and that upon which it feeds.

I heard an unexpected voice: a Bridegroom!
His presence, faithful, protecting, providing -
Love. speaking tenderly as if to a Bride,
a language fully alien
to my harlotry and the thirsty gods
of a land and people given over
to devouring.

Words came like the wind
A storm all around me
then they came like the rain
cleansing, restoring, remaking
and lastly like the dew
gentle covering of mercy.

You led me to the wilderness
but your love caused it to become a spring.
From former waste of pain,
Rises hope
and I lie down in arms everlasting.


*see Hosea

humility

Humility, forgotton virtue
forgotton
for we are far gone now, so
high with our own estimation
we cannot even touch
the hem of your garment. Reality.
To come down, to draw near...
First we would have to love our neighbor.
Well, lets be honest, see our neighbor,
and then esteem them for their worth
which is: better than ourselves.
Who is my neighbor?
My brother? No - even my sister?
Really? Come on,
you cannot be serious.
They don't know how to think
and well, they're not all that pretty
and if thats not enough, its clear
they aren't even close to as virtuous
as you or me.
So you, humility, handmaiden
of inner beauty,
remain untouchable and unacceptable,
cinderella sweeping.

gift

you are small. full of light.
having a seriousness bigger

than a 3-year-old
but an openness that is ever responding
wonder-fully to life.
you are strong, built like your father,
with a gentle spirit,
and a jig in your step, like your mother.
you still have that reservation
i remember from the season i took care of you:
turning from strange voices and too many faces.
and i, ha, also was only too eager
to exchange formalities for that greater wisdom
of love, simplicity, fun, and courageous vulnerability
that you, and every child, keep teaching me.
you speak much more clearly and intelligently
than you did back then.
but...i can't help but be playful,
leaving "education" for a moment, to the wind.
today we laughed, shaking randrops from branches
that splashed on our clothes and faces.
somehow this brief time
profoundly renewed my heart:
a spring watering dry places.

Please, wade in these waters. 

gently 

dip toes, 

foot, ankle, 

knees -

learn to bear the initial icy jolt 

that shocks 

your independence but touches 

deep joy - that is, 

warm hope of the soul's refreshment.

allow the plaguing illusion of control 

to slip utterly beneath the swift stream's current 

and get lost in its enigmatic dimensions of blue. 

Go deeper! waist, 

stomach, 

chest, 

neck - deep 

enough for your body to give up the heat 

of all its striving, 

relieved from false demand.

and (finally!) put down thy head. Feel

waters rush over, through, 

your face, 

eyes, lips, 

hair -

and let yourself be carried 

below and above the waters 

in this one and only stream called, 

"the clear merciful love of God."

more wendell berry

Sabbaths 2002 (Given)

X.

Teach me the work that honors Thy work,

the true economies of goods and words,

to make my arts compatible

with the songs of local birds.

Teach me patience beyond work

and, beyond patience, the blest

Sabbath of Thy unresting love

which lights all things and gives rest.

Sabbaths 1999 (Given)

II.

I dream of a quiet man

who explains nothing and defends

nothing, but only knows

where the rarest wildflowers

are blooming, and who goes,

and finds that he is smiling

not by his own will.

Bookstore poem

I am drawn to bookstores...

for the company! I suppose.

They are all there,

waiting, as it were,

like long-time friends - ready

for enriching and provocative conversation.

They are gentle, unassuming, as they wait

for me to reach, to touch and open

and wander through their leaves.

Many of them are old.

While I read, I can sense their strength -

more: maturity - from their travels

through life, the world,

and back again.

They smile generous like the sun, to see

their gift unfold to the world, to

my own small but curious heart.

The young ones often pierce me

with bright angles. The rawness of their

emotional insights. They paint in brighter colors

awakening me from too much comfort or sleep

but are lacking the aloe to soothe my fears.

The bookstore exists as a garden of thoughts

bearing both aesthetic and pragmatic fruits

or like a mine, small cave in the side of the earth

where you dig, make diligent search,

delighting to extract gold, precious jewels.

The company here is soft at first, colorful and diverse

like the land in which we live.

They speak in tongues, in mysteries,

in laments, in praises,

they speak the language of humanity

and my soul is thirsty for solace and understanding.