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Monday – Earth Day
I recall the first Earth Day, which I covered for the Carleton College student newspaper in 1970. While we understood well that the earth was in trouble, we had no idea then about the damage that hydrocarbons would inflict upon weather patterns, ocean currents, glaciers, coral reefs, etc.
With environmental activism in mind, I have chosen Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” for today’s post. Activists, she tells us, don’t have to operate from some self-flagellating sense of mission, reminiscent of those desert fathers who saw extreme abstinence as a sign of virtue. Sometimes those who care about nature get so caught up in despair that they forget to “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
Often, in an attempt to enact earth-friendly policies, we trot out apocalyptic scenarios of an uninhabitable earth. Although the predictions are not inaccurate, it may be more persuasive to take Oliver’s approach and look up at the wild geese that are flying overhead. If we can get people to see themselves in these geese, thereby recognizing their place “in the family of things,” we’re much more likely to get them to join us in our efforts to usher in green policies.
Oliver was America’s most popular poet when she died five years ago, in part because of her passion and her appreciation for the natural world. Don’t underestimate the power of poetry to win hearts and minds when it comes to matters of the greatest urgency.
Wild Geese
By 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 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.
