Wild Geese

In this beautiful poem I finally found a voice that so closely echoed all that was whispering in my heart one distilling dawn by the remote sea at Beting Bronok. There then I felt a gift had been given me - an epiphany of light and truth and the passion and joy of life screaming out to celebrate and to share. I felt so happy and I have learned so much. I am glad too the fleeting moment of my wondering at Beting Bronok I did capture. I called it Passion.

Mary Oliver's Wild Geese should move you out from wherever you may be into the light of living in the freedom of a priceless life, of discovering who you are and the world about you... i.e. if you chose to... fearlessly and lovingly... with acceptance and reckless abandonment. There is no time to lose.

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 in 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 sky,

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.

Source: Dream Work by Mary Oliver

published by Atlantic Monthly Press