Today on my way to school, on a certain stretch of highway, I noticed two Canadian geese sitting together. Normally I see them flying overhead in flocks, so just two of them together stood out to me. Believing this held some significance for me, I took a mental note and went about my day. On my way home from school, on this same certain stretch of road, having completely forgotten about the incident, suddenly flying straight across my path, so close I was afraid I would hit them with my car, were two beautiful Canadian geese. The same ones? Who can know. But one thing for sure, I knew they had a special message for me. Tonight I came across this familiar poem, and hidden within its golden words were the gifts of those beautiful geese. I am illuminated!
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.
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