mary oliver makes everything better. she ALWAYS does.
Wild Geese
By 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 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.
I’ve experienced this myself, and I always feel disappointment when I read another blogger say something like “I’m done, I’ve said all there is to say and I’m retiring my blog.” Maybe you’ve felt either or both sides of this, too. So I just saw a wonderful revision of a poem speaking to this issue, on the LATimes blog (and click to read the post, because it’s actually about the closing of a great blog):
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Internet Fog
by Dylan Thomas
remixed by Carolyn Kellogg
Do not go gentle into that internet fog,
Writing should burn and rage complete
Rage, rage against the dying of the blog.
Unwise men think sentences do bog,
But what can be said in just a Tweet?
Do not go gentle into that internet fog.
Good men at laptops watch agog,
Their words sucked into a Facebook data sheet
Rage, rage against the dying of the blog.
A wild man who drinks the German grog
Leaves updates, a 4G phone — he’s indiscreet!
Do not go gentle into that internet fog.
Grave men crave followers and flog
And flog for more with desperate heat
Rage, rage against the dying of blog.
And you, dear poets, know writing is no slog
The ebb and flow of words is sweet
Do not go gentle into that internet fog,
Rage, rage against the dying of the blog.
– Carolyn Kellogg





























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