expectations...the full Wild Geese poem

[Sally Haden]

I just realised that Maura didn't in fact complete that poem.  She quoted
the relevant part, but I think that for those who haven't seen it, it is
worth completing.  This is the full poem as Maura quoted it a few months
ago:

Wild Geese

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.

Mary Oliver, Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986.

Sally
Lancashire, UK

_________________________________________________________________
It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today!
http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger