Wild Geese
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.
Tough Years
How many times have you said to yourself
or thought out loud,
It's been a tough year?
Tis not the years that are hard on us, my love.
For the years themselves are weathered
devotees; they are seasons come around
again and again only to see
that nothing was learned
and that we love them
less and less.
One would have to be tough indeed
to be a year.
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.
by MARY OLIVER
Tough Years
How many times have you said to yourself
or thought out loud,
It's been a tough year?
Tis not the years that are hard on us, my love.
For the years themselves are weathered
devotees; they are seasons come around
again and again only to see
that nothing was learned
and that we love them
less and less.
One would have to be tough indeed
to be a year.
by PADMAPANI L. PEREZ
Comments
Big hugs!