Goose Force

Repent nothing.

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In late November I sat at my desk, sorting out a sentence, when I heard a rumpus in the sky. I knew I recognized the sound, but it was so many different versions of the sound that I couldn’t pick out the signal from the extremely loud noise that seemed to shake the air. It was—moving? It was—coming closer?

It was geese. Hundreds of geese, flying in overlapping, constantly shifting Vs, all calling forth and back to each other as they formed and re-formed. I have never seen so many together at once. I may never see so many at once again. I understand the poem better now.

If you do not know The Poem, I offer it to you now:

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.

It was exciting to see so many. To be faced with the harsh evidence of contingency. The world has existed for millions of years, and somehow I exist and got to see all those geese, who also exist, and geese care nothing for human frailty or rules or cabinet confirmations.

As I was considering the majesty of those many, many, geese, that event I have never seen before and may never see again, I felt uplifted in my soul. And then, in my wonder, I started laughing. Because this was no mere flock. A flock might be misunderstandable as something domestic. Something friendly. No, this? This was an armada. These geese were not just migratory. This was… Goose Force.

The ridiculous is on the other side of everything. There is the overwhelming majesty of a bunch of geese, a memory I will treasure forever, and there is also now Goose Force. Which I will also treasure forever, but in a very different way.

The world which is currently offering itself to my imagination is the source of such despair. Yours? I’ll tell you mine. But no matter how lonely, we don’t have to be good. I see us all trying, from all sides, to make some meaning of our lives as they are pushed from all sides. The soft animal of my body loves what it loves, but it fears what it fears, too. Where is the home we can head to again? This is the home we have.

And the wild geese fly over, and I imagine them in little aviator helmets, with little goggles, yelling to each other as they form and re-form, the bombardiers and the fighters and the maintenance crews of Goose Force. I imagine their great enemies—the lawns of corporate HQs. The world offers itself to my imagination.

Meanwhile, no repenting. Yell at your elected officials as if you are a goose and they have a crust of bread. Unnerve them with the beadiness of your eye and the strength in your beak. If a goose has a motto, it must be Repent Nothing.