Monday, September 14, 2009

The Morning Reading: Mary Oliver

Vice president Joe Biden visited the World Trade Center at Ground Zero last Friday marking the eighth anniversary commemoration of the 9/11 attacks.

Biden read Mary Oliver's poem, "Wild Geese."

Here it is.


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.

3 comments:

Susan Matthewson said...

I love Mary Oliver. What a perfect poem for the occasion! Thanks for sharing this. I wasn't aware that Biden had read this poem.

Rebel Girl said...

I was surprised -and moved - by the choice of the poem. I like the idea of a Vice President who reads poetry. It certainly is a start in the right diorection.

Tatjana Soli said...

Beautiful, for that day and for every day after it.

 
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