[Oe List ...] Message to Terry Wright

[Nancy Lanphear]

Dear Terry,

Words do not come easily for me - I am not a poet.  However, I do 
appreciate poetry and love to receive and hear it spoken.  There are 
certain poems that speak clearly to me and I would share one with you 
today.  It is certainly one of my favorite works of art.

WILD GEESE by Mary Oliver ( the last 2 lines are the special message I 
would send to you)

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 landscape,
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.

Take care, Terry, and remember that you are loved.

Nancy and Fred