Written by Isabella Halteman. Graphic by Anna Porter.
I feel as though I have lived a million lives just this winter quarter, and it is only Week 7. Things I thought were not a big deal are now a big problem, and things I thought were a big deal really don’t matter. I worry about stretching myself too thin. I question my choices and what will happen in a year when I am in my last quarter at SCAD. Something I have been trying to implement into my day-to-day is focusing on being in the moment, controlling what I can and knowing that wherever I am right now is where I am supposed to be. We all have ideas of what we want our future to look like, both career-wise and otherwise. But you cannot get to that future without doing what you are doing right now. Mary Oliver’s poem “Wild Geese” speaks to all those anxieties I have and reminds me to take a step back and see all the life that is happening around you.
Mary Oliver was an American poet born in 1935 and sadly passed in 2019. She is well known for her romantic, nature-centered poetry collections. She emphasizes the beauty and the quiet of the world. Her fifth book “American Primitive” (1983) won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry. With over 50 published books and collections, she spent her career celebrating the natural world and pointing out all of Earth’s little beauties to her readers.
Next to the span of the universe, all our little problems seem even smaller than a speck of dust. Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” reminds us of the beauty of nature and its power to ground us back into the now. Published in the poet’s collection “Dream Work,” which came out in 1986, the lines still ring true and are an important message to scatterbrained young adults like myself.
The speaker in the first line starts by telling the reader that they do not have to be amazing or to beat themselves up for making a mistake. Instead, people should be kind to themselves and know that they need to let themselves love whatever it is that they want to love. The speaker offers to share their ails if the reader shares theirs, all the while the world keeps spinning: “Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain // are moving across landscapes,” and “Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, // are headed home again.” The speaker implores the reader to lose themselves in the beauty of the earth and everything around them, to stop and pay attention.
It is a tough pill to swallow, and most people have heard this advice many many times. But it is true. “Stop and smell the flowers,” some say, but I think Oliver says it so much more eloquently in these lines. I often feel like I am running out of time, and while I might be for certain things, on a grander scale of what I hope to be a long, exciting life, I am just beginning. And so are all of you. I will leave you with the last five lines of this piece and encourage you to listen to Mary Oliver herself read her piece. As I always like to remind you all, poetry is meant to be read out loud and heard.
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
Isabella Halteman is a Junior Performing Arts major with a minor in Vocal Performance. She is a Copy Editor for District, editing and publishing articles on our website. She also enjoys writing poetry and creative personal essays. Outside of school, you can find her singing in her car, baking and cooking, and watching old movies.
