Poem: 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.

From her 2003 book
Owls and Other Fantasies

Poem: The Lens of God

Picture the girls
not in red
but white dresses

Standing beside
not pimps
but proud fathers

Picture the boys
not in black
but white armor

Standing among
not drunks
but proud sons

One day I will be
a mere crumble of bones
as once I was before

But in this moment on the hill
beneath the tree
among the many passersby

I see the ivory tower of God
and His golden clock
alive in the bodies of His children

Here is our holy humanity
here is the end of burning lusts
here is the baptism of eyes and breath

Here is our inheritance of life.

Written 6-10-08
Berkeley, CA