Wild Geese
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.
Mary Oliver
from Dream Work