Wild Geese

I’ve shared this one in my other blog last year. One of my favorite modern poems.

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.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver

published by Atlantic Monthly Press

© Mary Oliver

About zarine

Your everyday girl writing everyday babbles
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2 Responses to Wild Geese

  1. onyxx says:

    i think i like this poem. it speaks of acceptance, tolerance and goodwill :)

  2. eks says:

    galing. i like these kinds of poem/prose. parang yung kay oriah (the invitation, the dance). i wish i could write something as good as this one.

    xxx

    Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
    knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging.
    Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,
    holding neither against me at the end of the day.

    Don’t say, “Yes!”
    Just take my hand and dance with me.

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