“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.”
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
There is so much I could tell you about this track. The starting point was anguish, watching a country in turmoil from afar, then the loss of a friend in many ways, a favourite poem re-read a hundred times and finally, the longed for safe return of a loved one.
Let’s leave it that….
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