{"id":5632,"date":"2017-03-03T10:06:28","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T17:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=5632"},"modified":"2017-03-03T10:06:28","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T17:06:28","slug":"mary-oliver-wild-geese-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/03\/mary-oliver-wild-geese-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Oliver – Wild Geese"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wild Geese
\nby Mary Oliver<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

You do not have to be good.
\nYou do not have to walk on your knees
\nFor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
\nYou only have to let the soft animal of your body
\nlove what it loves.
\nTell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
\nMeanwhile the world goes on.
\nMeanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
\nare moving across the landscapes,
\nover the prairies and the deep trees,
\nthe mountains and the rivers.
\nMeanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
\nare heading home again.
\nWhoever you are, no matter how lonely,
\nthe world offers itself to your imagination,
\ncalls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting \u2014
\nover and over announcing your place
\nin the family of things.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from Dream Work<\/a>, by Mary Oliver<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by lil-Mickey<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

I have the sense that it has been a rough week for many people, so I wanted to pick a gentle poem, something uplifting, something that invites us to pause, take a deep breath, and catch a new glimpse of ourselves and the world\u2026<\/p>\n

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
\nMeanwhile the world goes on.<\/i><\/p>\n

To me this poem is a healing balm, the way it invites us to forgive our own struggles and look beyond them to a larger, living grandeur, of which we are a part.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
\nare moving across the landscapes\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n

Late winter here in Colorado\u2026 <\/p>\n

the world offers itself to your imagination,
\ncalls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting<\/i><\/p>\n

Look up and see \u201cthe wild geese, high in the clean blue air\u2026\u201d Ancient purpose, animal and magnetic, lined up in chevrons across the winter sky. That eternal determination that marks our direction through the world, to be always \u201cheading home again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The geese continuously call out one to another, as we all do, \u201cover and over announcing your place \/ in the family of things.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Mary Oliver<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
New and Selected Poems<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nWhy I Wake Early<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nDream Work<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nHouse of Light<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nThirst: Poems<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Mary<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nMary Oliver<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

US (1935 \u2013 )
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Mary Oliver was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1935.<\/p>\n

As a young writer, Mary Oliver was influenced by Edna St. Vincent Millay and, in fact, as a teenager briefly lived in the home of the recently deceased Millay, helping to organize Millay\u2019s papers.<\/p>\n

Mary Oliver attended college at Ohio State University, and later at Vassar College.<\/p>\n

Mary Oliver\u2019s poetry is deeply aware of the natural world, particularly the birds and trees and ponds of her adopted state of Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

Her collection of poetry \u201cAmerican Primitive\u201d won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Mary Oliver<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1881,93,1177],"class_list":["post-5632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-home","tag-mary-oliver","tag-wild-geese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5632"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5633,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5632\/revisions\/5633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}