{"id":3891,"date":"2021-05-23T14:29:38","date_gmt":"2021-05-23T18:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/?p=3891"},"modified":"2024-02-19T13:45:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T18:45:21","slug":"may-21-mary-oliver-wild-geese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/2021\/05\/23\/may-21-mary-oliver-wild-geese\/","title":{"rendered":"May 21- Mary Oliver – “Wild Geese”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cover and over announcing your place
\nin the family of things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some few years ago,\u00a0\u00a0I was catching up with an old friend after too long a hiatus. \u00a0I tracked his email address and found a batch of emails. \u00a0In three of them we exchanged posts about a poem both of us like a great deal. \u00a0I read it again and decided to post it on the second last Friday in this Spring\u2019s wide open outpouring of this first Spring since the ordeal of Covid. \u00a0 I imagined that my dad would have liked this poem a lot, \u00a0 Mary Oliver’s \u201cWild Geese\u201d brought me back to October 1980 when he died. \u00a0I wrote this journal note then.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile he was dying – – after pancreatic cancer gone to the liver made him thin and jaundiced – – \u00a0one day he put on a business suit, now too big for his body, and went one last time to the modest city bank where he had been president for years. \u00a0 He stopped at each person\u2019s work place, told each one goodbye; \u00a0told them \u00a0that he was proud to have worked with them, shook hands, and came back \u00a0home where we had moved his bed downstairs into the dining room for his last weeks.<\/p>\n

Dad was a\u00a0man who enjoyed the ordinary human condition and respected the women and men who lived it : \u00a0He would have liked this poem. \u00a0The poem likes him I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good to read strong poems, like this one, out loud.<\/p>\n

have a blest day.<\/p>\n

john sj<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

Today\u2019s Post: \u00a0\u00a0\u201cWild Geese\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cover and over announcing your place in the family of things.\u201d Some few years ago,\u00a0\u00a0I was catching up with an old friend after too long a hiatus. \u00a0I tracked his email address and found a batch of emails. \u00a0In three … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11641],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3891"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3914,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3891\/revisions\/3914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/poetry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}