old man winter

It hasn't stopped snowing since the storm started last night. The fields that were so close to bare are covered once more. The weather man on Vermont public radio told us, in a lengthy allegorical tale (that is typical of his weather reports) of Old Man Winter, the rock musician, who was coming down to Vermont from Québec to play a farewell tour this week.

Last spring my sister sent me her copy of a volume of Mary Oliver's poetry for my 28th birthday. She marked a couple of poems which she insisted I read. The following has been floating in my head these past days.....over and over announcing your place / in the family of things.

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.
                                        -Mary Oliver New and Selected Pomes: Vol 1