gentleness

by mary oliver.


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

my job is hurting me?

its not their swollen hands
that are multicolored raw
open layered skin like scales

it is not their eyes, that blink repeatedly
that pulse when they are looking at things they
hate and desire.
the deep brown with no pupil
focused all on their prey.

its not their stories, their reps

stolen in the night
little glass pipes eroding under the seat
babies with goop in their eyes and mouths
or the smoke that will flush the windows.

pockets that hold knives in convenient stores
and the hot oiled pans
thrown in the kitchen
the loudness
the pushiness upon floorboards
that give.


it’s the sound of their words.



unlaced by quick to whip.
desparate sound that comes out
fast & nonsensical.
stubborn defenses
behind them
wrap around and around like veins
until I forget who I am.

its their tone that will eat me.
the energy of a summer storm
behind each mumbled word.
ready to tear off roofs.
wash over my borders
it’s the way they talk to me
like I am younger than them
and I believe it
when I sink in my leather chair
behind the old desk
which counts as no barrier because
their words
are falling in the drawers, all over my shoulders.

its their words and the tails behind them.
that embarrass me.

to explain the picture of a tree

I am writing on my yellow pad (that I stole from
dad’s desk), with large pencil
cursive that is too tall, too fat
in the blue lines.

I am sitting on my yellow and blue striped bed
two mix matched socks
(one with the toe part hanging off)
sweep the hardwood.

it is dinnertime, and Ray Charles croons
up the stairs, down the hall
into the tuna meat of our sandwiches.

Summer is has settled, and the smell of wood smoke
comes into the house

comes into the house with the Indian yellow light.
from my bedroom window
I am watching the shiny copper
eucalyptus sway her head
and the pendulum motion of her curly hair.

two mantras;

There is no me. I am dead.
There is no me. I am dead.
There is no me. I am dead.
There is no me. I am dead.

This is exactly it.
This is exactly it.
This is exactly it.

death it seems--as I sit kneeling buckled, palms pressed--is harmony;

Buy this book or This blog will make me famous

This is the blog that is going to make me famous.



I now live in a house of five including myself. The moving process almost killed me, my back is broken, and Mariah still is in deep defense mode, as if for a few hours I was a possessed during the move and she's not sure if the demon is still in charge of my body or not. AND there is still a ten ft volcano of crap sitting on a front lawn.

My new landlord seems cool though. He looks like Val Kilmers hawaiian brother Hal Kilmer, and he is doing a bicycle race in Tahoe on Thursday—cycling 140 miles in 10 hours. On Saturday, I told him I saw a man cycle straight up a mountain that looked 90 degrees from the base. He replied with, the trail I was speaking of was a: beginners trail. Every since, the only time I see him, he is either coming from or to some kind of kill-yourself work out.

**I debated this morning for longer than I would like to disclose here, if I should drive to the level I-II yoga class down the road.**

Needless to say, between the tragedy of summer ceramics, and the realization that I burn 30 calories a week by panic attack, I was feeling a little down. The familiar melancholy feeling always sounds it's three alarms. Its time to write in my graditude journal, its time to write a poem, and its time to be quiet.

#1 on my thankful list is I am thankful for my internal emotional alarm.

But this is where the crucial advice comes in. Pretend the next few sentences are in red bold: I am so glad that I have a ritual that I conduct when my center feels far away from where I am residing. I am so glad that I know I have a home that I have wandered from. I DO NOT want to taint the natural healing mechanism by bringing the same ‘you ain’t ever good enough’ attitude when I finally sit down.

On the way to a July 4th party I was talking to one of my new friends about writing. We had one of those new friend moments when you point your index at each other and feel perfectly validated that someone else in the universe sees things like you do. I admitted bashfully that, “every poem I write…in the back of my mind I hope that this will be the poem that gets me famous” That’s when she held on to her hat in sheer delight. I guess she had just seen her reflection.

After the pain in my bowls of Lopside, & after my landlord showed me up by 130 more miles that I have ever cycled in my life—do I need a critic that is demanding masterpiece every time I sit down to write myself back home?

I pray for my writing to be safe from the part of my mind that wants to hate on things. To be free from the heavy desire of approval. Constantly, I am wanting for people to prove to me that I am great, and talented, and full of love. Please show me in your eyes that you believe that I am special. But... if I were being honest, I’d tell you that it doesn’t matter what you say to me, because I never believe it anyway.

So, instead of trying to get my mind to see my greatness. I am going to let go of wanting greatness all together. By breathing ins these mantras: I write because it heals me. I write because it helps me to see clearly. I write because it’s what I do. That’s all. I will write poetry, and I will write this blog just to pass the time—because there is nothing more noble than doing what you do to find the moonlit breadcrumb.

Buy this book above... immediately if you are suffering from the same noise in your mind when you sit down to find your way.

I love you.
K