Tuesday, January 28, 2025

READING ALOUD - Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

This is only one of many stand out poems in Dream Work from 1981. A collection of quietly insightful poems, each with a strong connection to land, animals, birds, in which environments both outer and inner collide and merge in unexpected ways. Wild Geese has become increasingly popular. because of this unusual synthesis of landscape and optimism, its call to reinvigorate the human spirit. Oliver may not be the most gifted reciter of her own work, but her unassuming manner of delivery is somewhat characteristic of her poetry. Slowly captivating your heart with the gentlest of sentence structures. Reminding you that wild geese respond to their nature and the world surrounding them in ways that perhaps we have too easily forgotten. The way we feel about ourselves and the world is a transitory self obsession, that deflects the clarity of our perceptions. Yes, we despair, but the wild geese they are heading home. Our problems is we do not know where' home' lies anymore, so reorienting our sense of purpose is confused.

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 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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