Being the (unterrified) focus of attention

for a day.

Sunday, December 11, 2022—Winter Poems Series—#3

Hello lovelies!

I celebrated completing my 61st turn around the sun yesterday, and embarking on the adventure of my 62nd. There was so much quiet joy in the day, it surprised me. I so rarely accept being the focus of attention—frankly it usually terrifies me—but yesterday I was the focus of a day full of small acts of kindness served up by family and friends. It felt, and feels, simultaneously odd and right to mark the passing of this somewhat challenging year by sloshing about in a gentle sea of sweetness. It was like the best cup of tea and a book ever!

As I write this morning, the dove-gray air is punctuated by the call of Canada Geese on the move. You can hear a large flock coming from quite a distance. Sometimes, for a few moments as they pass overhead, that cacophony seems to fill everything and I imagine I could lift my arms and be airborne on sound. That sound reminds me how, nearly 20 years ago, a friend sent me Mary Oliver’s book What Do We Know prompting me to dive headlong into her poetry, reviving my own faltering poetry practice—and so many other essential things—in the process.

Way at the top of this photo, if you look closely, you will see a string of dots. Those dots are Canada Geese streaming across the sunset, headed for a nearby field for the night. Tiny phone cameras can capture the most amazing moments.

Like so many people I was moved and inspired by Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese.” I found comfort and motivation in its reminder that simply being the “soft animal” of myself is enough, that my belonging to this earth and in my ecosystem is assured, and that despair can be shared. Of course, as with most poetry, the more I read it, the more it reveals.

While “Wild Geese” isn’t specifically a winter poem, I first read it at this time of year and have forever associated its spare truth with the slanted light and bare branches of December. That’s why I’m including it here, now, because Mary Oliver’s inspiration, and this poem in particular, is one of the reasons I’m still here celebrating birthdays.

Oh, and the link I’ve included for “Wild Geese” takes you to a recording where the poet herself is reading the poem!

Today’s poem is “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver,

originally published in her 1986 collection Dream Work, though it’s also available in her 1992 New and Selected Poems and in her 2017 compilation Devotions.

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.

With warm, gentle thoughts and an ocean of kindness,

Tracie

P.S. I’m curious what you think about the audio version I’ve begun including with the letter. Is it helpful? Do you prefer reading or listening? What do you think?