Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
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.
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