Friday, September 4, 2015

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver


M.C.Escher - Day and Night


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.



Two things chosen today, Mary Oliver's Wild Geese, reminds me that the swallows are returning south soon, and leaving these wintry shores and the comfort of the old church, just like the wild geese in Kerraldune's blog in Canada.
The Escher drawing, reminds me of this as well, and the contradictory nature of humans as we go to and fro in our daily lives.  I am sure there is a dissertation out there on the drawing, does it matter? can it not just be seen for its visual message.
We are to go out for an anniversary lunch today soon to Lastingham, and maybe a walk by the beck, the weather is cold, why has Autumn dropped by so quickly?

7 comments:

  1. Happy anniversary. I hope you both had an enjoyable meal.

    I loved those geese taking flight from the chequerboard of fields, and the accompanying poem is one I have never come across before. I just wish my brain wasn't quite so jaded by deep cleaning the house so I could enjoy it more. I shall have to return and let it wash through me properly.

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    1. Thank you Jennie for your wishes, we ate plainly as you will see from above. Mary Oliver is someone I come across quite a lot on other blogs. Reading a magazine yesterday came across a single line and so hunted the poem out.
      Good luck with your 'deep cleaning' of the house, at least you have lots of lovely thing to see. X

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  2. Thank you for that lovely Poem....

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    1. You are welcome Ana, I follow you on F/B as you know and always love the photos of your garden and your walks with Paula in the mornings.

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    2. Yes you have been very kind with your comments....Take care...

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  3. I am an Escher fan too Thelma. I did have one of his jig saws once but found it quite undoable.
    That poem is exquisite and I shall try and run off a copy for our next poetry meeting.
    Yes - I agree - it is a coldNorth Yorkshire today. Enjoy your anniversary treat.

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  4. Morning Pat, it is freezing today as well, that North wind is bringing an ice chill with it! Escher is always to be found in magazines that I read, a mathematical precision, should study him more, as of course Paul Klee, which for some reason in my mind they are similar being precise in their art...

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