High in the clean blue air

The American poet Mary Oliver focused on nature, not the human world. I suspect that she probably was happier for it.

I’ve chosen her “Wild Geese” for today’s National Poetry Month entry because of an event that happened yesterday morning. I got up around 0600 and reckoned I’d go out for a walk before heading into the office. Well, about a third of the way into the walk I heard geese honking overhead; I looked up to see them, but did not stop walking.

Until my left foot struck a curb and I went down. I scraped my left knee, but mostly broke the fall with my left hand.

I don’t think anything’s broken, but trying to work at a computer is…a slice.

Ugh.

Update: too swollen to get my watch on today.

Yay.

“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 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.