An Old Friend

I've been feeling a bit under the weather lately. It's been a funny old month, May. I've had a few knocks and scrapes and I'm feeling a little worse for wear as a consequence.

And it seems that my blog has suffered a little as a result...not too much posting going on this month!

But that's ok. I wanted it to be a little sanctuary, free from pressure and constraint. I wanted to have a positive space to write down my thoughts and feelings and focus on the happy, good things in life.

This is especially important to do when life takes a less than pleasant turn.

So in this post, I want to return to that old friend of mine, the poem. A friend who has a thought or a verse for any occasion.

The following is a poem I stumbled across quite by accident some years ago in a bookshop. I opened the book and out leapt this beautiful verse.

A lovely poem for a lovely sunny day.

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 your 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