some things are received
more soundly
unsaid.
we grate against the void

(loss of understanding)

that threatens death
upon we who live to know. but,
in the severe movements of silence,
idol gods die.
hearts burn - bear fire -
and grow.

winged bird of hope
return to my breast
with gentle song
tarry
within my heart,
build a nest.

Sabbath has become strange to me.
I rest in corners, clutch at shadows
write poetry on the floor of
library avenues.
Feeling as if I set a table for rest
it would be unwilling come, or
it wouldn't be fresh.
So I gather up scattered
flowers of sleep
into a fragrant bouquet born,
alas, from uneven peace
send up a prayer, set down to hope
til Sabbath return
upon my broken busy world.

October rain falls with an icy overture
summoning bright leaves
from branches
to stony disintegration
beneath tire and sole.
Eyes fix upon ground which
once were held high.
The weary world wonders
at this last ripple of laughter
gently yielding
to beauty’s rustling murmur.
Though death stands nigh
ankles are blanketed with light.

A response to "Wild Geese"

I am not able to be good, anyway.
So, I think I may have to walk on my knees
for a hundred miles through the desert,
repenting
(not because I warrant or am
capable of extraordinary suffering)
but because I am called after One
who sought my self-bent despair to relieve.
Whose Love compelled him
to walk a hundred miles through the desert
through the wilderness of fallen
faithless humanity to Calvary,
where the soft animal of his body
was nailed to a tree.

All because he loved what he loved!
the world.
And we loved what we loved,
darkness.

Meanwhile the world goes on.
Unfeeling, unseeing,
As God draws near
having paid the desert's wearisome toll
of reconciling.
So when I hear the wild geese cry – harsh and exciting –
and the beauty of created things encloses about me,
I will listen, allow my imagination to be held and borne
upon the wind of eternal invitation.

Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness
and tolerance and patience, not knowing
that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
Romans 2:4

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.