Oliver's "Wild Geese"

Today I keep reminding myself that I am graceful, I am delicate, I am well-trained, that I could do a clumsy dive and a better push-off and some really great backstroke, that I could do all the ballet positions and some plie`s (isn't that the name of those running and spinning jumps?), that really, I can move, and I can sit still.

It's just so sunny. And in here, I need to be so quiet, so stationed, and after a while listening to music doesn't help either. My head still can't decide if wordless noise or silence helps me think better; maybe it's both, at different times.

Let's go alter some clothes. Let's go cut hair in a field.

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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.