Not Too Poetry

[After ‘Wild Geese’ by Mary Oliver]

You don’t have to be good
You don’t have to have an arm of merit badges
You don’t have to have hours of practice
You just have to admit your need.

  Tell him about pain, yours
  and he will tell you his.

Meanwhile, the angels still sing.
Meanwhile, the next child is born
– new mothers cry in pain and joy,
fathers look on in tear-filled wonder
and family give thanks for reason to hope and smile.

Meanwhile, milk flows.
You don’t need to be good to suckle.
You just need to hunger.

  There’s milk, and there will be wine.
  ‘Drink your fill of love.’

____

After Song of Solomon 5: 1.
… I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk….
Eat, friends, and drink; drink your fill of love.

After Isaiah 55: 1.
“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost…”