National Poetry Month: "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver

[tardis_stowaway]

My grand plans of posting lots of poetry have sadly fallen by the wayside.  Well, the month is scarcely over half over, and here's another poem.

Mary Oliver is probably my favorite contemporary poet.  Today's poem, "Wild Geese," is one of her better known poems.  I find it comforting when I am feeling self-critical, overwhelmed, or generally down.

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.