I was raised to think poetry had to rhyme. Pretty limiting, but there we have it. So it was with joy and amazement I discovered a whole other world of gorgeous poetry, mostly courtesy my work at Strozzi Institute www.strozziinstitute.com where its founder, Dr. Richard Strozzi-Heckler suggests poetry is “….a raid on the inarticulate…..” [from T. S. Eliot]. One of my favourite poems is Wild Geese by Mary Oliver and I came across the author reading her work, utterly delightful:
WILD GEESE
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.