April? Still National Poetry Month

[brigdh]

Wild Geese 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 clear 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.

Comments

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, me too.

Yeah! I was really amused- I saw a ton of poems turn up on my flist after I posted the one last night.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

WTF I just tried to enter your URL to get to your journal and ended up here (http://www.xanga.com/wordsofastory) instead? How did that happen?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Uh, that's really strange! I don't know why it would do that; maybe you mistyped the URL? It's working for me.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

I was using my url! I was on my friendslist so I changed my mind to yours and took /friends/ off and kaboom, I'm on xanga. o_O

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Weird!

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

rofl mind=name. What have I been smoking?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Eh, I knew what you meant.