Sacred Heart #17

Above the boat,
bellies
of wild geese.

Takarai Kikaku (1661–1707) was a Japanese haiku poet and among the most accomplished disciples of Matsuo Basho.  

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 Jane Oliver (1935 – 2019) was one of the best-selling poets in American history. Her poetry focused on the natural world, vivid imagery and unadorned language.

Two interpretations of the same image – one as sharp and clean as a chop, the other as poignant as a prayer. Which one speaks to you?

I live in Northern California and every year around mid-August I hear the call of the geese flying south for the upcoming winter. They gather in small groups at first, straggling V-formations, circling round and round as if activating their internal compass. Then more and more geese appear and the flock gets bigger and louder and stronger, and become one in their journey southward.

“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.” The wild geese call us from our thinking minds and its myriad of troubles. Nature and life goes on and everything finds its rightful place. Their cries remind us that a destiny awaits and we must heed its call. Our destiny is our destination.