poetry pocket: 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.
dear little voice,
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote that if the stars appeared once every thousand years, that night would be considered an astounding spectacle, and all of us would stay up to behold them. and yet, we overlook each night they come out and “light the universe with their admonishing smile"
today is a day like any other: twenty-four hours, some stars, the salty-sheath of flowers, a little light, a little dark, and the miracle, of course, of putting one foot in front of the other, of breath. the sun will yet again devote itself to your seeing. the stars will emerge in their mundane spectacle of astonishment. you will choose, in that moment, where your eyes fall.
as Mary Oliver asks us of attention: “is a prayer a gift, or a petition, or does it matter?”
Mary Oliver, Don’t Hesitate.
i invite you to awaken and whisper: “it is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in the broken world.”
Mary Oliver, in an interview with On Being’s Krista Tippett.
it is serious human work, this business:
“And have you ever felt for anything such wild love– do you think there is anywhere, in any language, a word billowing enough for the pleasure that fills you, as the sun reaches out, as it warms you as you stand there, empty-handed–”
- Mary Oliver, The Sun
as Oliver asks:
“Listen, says ambition, nervously shifting her weight from one boot to another―why don’t you get going? For there I am, in the mossy shadows, under the trees. And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.”
- Black Oak, Mary Oliver.
i am reminded, little voice, of other stewards of this serious work.
of jacqui germain:
of Ellen Bass:
of Adonis:
of you.
the number of hours we have is not so large.
where will your eyes fall?
love,
ars poetica
Beautiful post. Thanks so much for this.
The little voices miss you!