You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 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 birds, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
The world offers itself to your imagination. Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –