Wild Geese: Mary Oliver

A friend gifted me a beautiful copy.

The words were swirly, and letterpressed onto white rippled cardboard, and when I read it—Wild Geese, a poem by Mary Oliver—I just knew there was no one in the world that needed it more than I did.

Fast forward to today: a few months after I met this lovely poem, and it met me. I’d planned another blog post entirely— I’d even written it and was ready to post. But the soft girl said, ‘No.’

The soft girl said, ‘share the poem.’

So, here I am.

Sharing the poem. Why?

Because the soft girl said so.

And if you feel it in your heart the way that I felt it when it first found me…then you’ll know the soft girl meant it for you. xx

***

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.