[Camino Poem No. 19] Wild Geese

This is the 19th of 42 posts about the poems that carried me along the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route in Aug-Sep 2016. On this (the 19th) day, I walked 23km from Carrion de los Condes to Ledigos. 

Picture me reading this poem, sat on a bench outside a small church, on a hill overlooking a weary village. Wheat stubble in the fields all around. Morning heat softening to end of day. 

Me, walking hundreds of miles through the desert, softly. And loving what I loved. Which was the walking, the outside, the solitude, the big skies. Me, no matter how lonely, excavating my place in the family of things. 

What would a life be, to hear that call each morning, harsh and exciting?

Wild Geese - Mary Oliver (1935-)

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.

p.s. like Mary Oliver? See also her poems: My work is loving the world and The Journey.