Have you noticed lately how amazing the display has been each dawn when the rising sun hits our quotidian low clouds? I've made it a practice this November to rise early enough to have coffee readied, allowing me to stir gratitude along with the cream into my first cup of the day, gazing out in quiet wonder at the shifting pink and gold tones of scattering light.
Occasionally I take my camera outside along with my coffee. As part of my ongoing "we do SO get Fall color, only it looks like THIS" conversation with family members who live out of state, I try to capture in images the ongoing fireworks in our clouds.
As I reluctantly turned away from the sun to go back indoors the other morning, I was surprised by the sight of a skein of geese migrating South in absolute silence. I laughed to myself, thinking this particular flock must be populated with creatures who were simply "not morning birds", preferring to wing their way towards winter sanctuary sans the typical vocalise.
Overcome with joy, I watched in appreciative admiration until they disappeared from view. This flock did not announce my place in the family of things with their voices, but as I struggled to imagine their experience of flying through each glimmering dawn, their transit through my morning sky offered me kinship sufficient to the day.
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.
