I was outside on my knees in the dirt, building a retaining wall out of rock harvested from the property for the planned front garden of the story house when I heard the geese. A fiddly breeze lifted sounds to me: a barking dog, the drone of a small-engine plane, the faint base notes of the music Chris and David listen to when they work--and then the geese. I heard them before catching sight of them. Their song brought me to my feet, had me backing up, scanning the sky that was in late afternoon a shade of endless blue. The geese came over the roof peak, their flight pattern a wishboned white ribbon limned in shades of gray and silver. I was lost, watching, hearing their ancient cries. In awe, not thinking in words, really, of the eternality of their ritual, but feeling it more as a resonation ... that it has gone on since time began and will continue long after I am gone. Seeing them, hearing them, never fails to touch some basic note within me, one that is as deep as bone, deeper even, and I understand, if only in that moment, the concept that is inherent in the word "eternal" and all else, all other noise, whatever there is of strife, is stilled. I feel joined to them and to the sky and the breath of the breeze that is from the very air that we--the geese and I--share.
This poem, from Mary Oliver, is one of my favorites. That line:
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air. . .
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
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You do not have to walk on your knees
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for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
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You only have to let the soft animal of your body
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love what it loves.
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Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
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Meanwhile the world goes on.
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Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
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are moving across the landscapes,
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over the prairies and the deep trees,
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the mountains and the rivers.
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Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
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are heading home again.
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Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
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the world offers itself to your imagination,
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calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
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over and over announcing your place
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in the family of things.
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