“Meanwhile the world goes on.”
Wild Geese - Mary Oliver | Apple Cider
The Poem
Wild Geese - Mary Oliver
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 your 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.
The Beverage
Apple Cider
Apple cider! It’s so good. Long-time readers will know I have recommended cider with bourbon the last two autumns, but I really also recommend just having apple cider plain. It’s so sweet and crisp and delicious. Trader Joe, my personal friend, also has been producing these new sparkling waters with real juice in them, and the lemon-ginger one is a really really nice pairing with the cider.
It’s too late in the evening for me to wax poetic in the note this weekend, but really. Cider.