Yesterday I looked up and saw 4-5 very large flocks of geese heading south for the winter. I don't know how many there were, 100-200. Everything stopped. Their calls are the essence of wildness. When one experiences a moment like this, the feeling is like you're being filled up with helium.
It's easy to despair over the state of this weary world at present. But the skies are filled with wonder and beauty and I'm grateful for that.
Wild Geese
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 your 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.
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