You do not have to be good
This is one of my favorite poems of all time (thx to Jill for the reminder). Given that it says everything I could (and better, with craft and elegance), I'll not say much. But everytime I read this poem, I find something new.

Today--from where I stand, now--it's bringing me back to the ordinary flesh and blood that we are. That we aren't some esoteric mind that somehow rises above our lowly animal selves. When we die, it's our bodies that are forever, not our riotous minds. Our bodies are literally immortal--changing and eventually getting absorbed into dirt, plants, sky, water, air--immutable but also always changing.

Of course, all that verbage (and the words below, for that matter) are just products of various thoughts, and therefore necessarily ephemeral, mortal, and may well be undone in the next moment...
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 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.
...

Labels: inspiration, poetry, words

:: ewee 1:49:00 PM [+] :: 1 comments ::
...

1 Comments:

Divine words for the start of your journey. Have a wonderful trip!

-posted by jill : 9:05 PM

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