Geese and other things worth a gander

Illinois

October 28, 2020

This road trip, from Seattle to Ohio, has reminded me again of the wide diversity found even in our single nation. The landscape has changed from snowy mountains to vast prairies to rolling hills to flat fields. Wildlife has been both plentiful and delightful. We have seen deer sharing fields with cows, all of them grazing at their leisure. Assorted hawks cross our field of vision and are gone before we know it. Horses in Wyoming looked like extras cast in a movie about the wild, wild west.

Throughout the trip, geese fly past us. We think they are all supposed to be headed south, but some are flying north. "Are they Canadian?" we ask.

My Beloved noted that a bonus that we've received from this trip is that we don't hold a radio station signal for very long, so we've heard little news. And we've not pursued it. It is freeing, this absence of the despair. And it is privilege, we know. And fleeting, if we are responsible citizens and global neighbors.

I am reminded of one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets. May its wisdom walk with us in these days:

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.

Mary Oliver