Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Life as Art



I love this time of year. It's winter and yet there is the dream of what will be as spring comes closer and days grow longer.

The geese are flying low over the lake and flapping wildly on the surface of the water vying for their territory.

With the voice of geese in my ear I bow in the direction of a supreme word dancer...Mary Oliver http://www.maryoliver.net/


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.


from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press© Mary Oliver

1 comment:

  1. Mary Oliver is one of my favorites!
    Her words capture it all.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for stopping '-)