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.
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So the rando connection is that a version of the goose is the wawa logo?
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention it, I have been spending quite a bit of time riding to that logo . . .
DeleteI think I want to be this rando mind in a wild place.
ReplyDeleteI told my wife that she had to check out this great poem on this website. She takes one look and reminds me that she wrote it into a journal that we gave our son when he left for college a few months ago. Win some, lose some.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is inspiring. Great stories, pictures, prose. Keep doing what you are doing. Sorry that I missed you at the RAS 200KM. I was the old, slow guy. See you on the roads.
That's funny. Apparently you and your wife share similar tastes in poetry - although she recognizes that months before you. Same thing happens here - I usually just say better late than never.
DeleteThanks for the kind words. Hope to meet up you with one of these rides