Wild Geese

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.

I took these photos last Sunday, walking by a frozen lake, in the late afternoon half-light with M and the dogs. Whilst uploading them this poem came to mind, that I had read in an anthology some time ago and all but forgotten. It is a little melancholy perhaps, but I think there is beauty in it, and hope too, and it just seemed to fit.

Smitten

I have loved my first week in my new job. There have been some long hours, which will take a little getting used to, but I have been kept busy so it has never been dull. Plus, the people are great and drink copious amounts of tea! I also love working by the river, and so centrally. Today I finished at 3pm so wandered along to the Southbank in the sunshine to meet a friend (the lovely Anna of Book Early) where we browsed the book market by the BFI and stopped for a drink on the terrace of the Royal Festival Hall.

We also visited the Poetry Library in the Southbank Centre where I picked up 'Rapture' by Carol Ann Duffy from the 'New Poet Laureate' display, and happened to stumble upon the following, which struck a chord:

TEA

I like pouring your tea, lifting
the heavy pot, and tipping it up,
so the fragrant liquid streams in your china cup.

Or when you’re away, or at work,
I like to think of your cupped hands as you sip,
as you sip, of the faint half-smile of your lips.

I like the questions – sugar? – milk? –
and the answers I don’t know by heart, yet,
for I see your soul in your eyes, and I forget.

Jasmine, Gunpowder, Assam, Earl Grey, Ceylon,
I love tea’s names. Which tea would you like? I say
but it’s any tea for you, please, any time of day,

as the women harvest the slopes
for the sweetest leaves, on Mount Wu-Yi,
and I am your lover, smitten, straining your tea.