High In The Clean Blue Air

John Coltrane: Trane's Slo Blues

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