Rural and Progressive’s National Poetry Month tribute continues today with two poems shared by attorney, software guru, artist, dog owner, and horse rider Kathleen O’Neal of Macon. Kathleen wrote, “Mary Oliver’s poetry gives me hope, which is the point of all good poetry, at least in my world. Mary Oliver shares my affinity for being outside; you can tell that from her imagery.”
The Uses of Sorrow
(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Mary Oliver
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.
Wild Geese
Mary Oliver
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 your 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.