This poem is featured in Mary Oliver’s extraordinary On Being conversation with Krista — one of the few in-depth interviews she gave in her lifetime: “I got saved by the beauty of the world.” Listen here: https://onbeing.org/programs/mary-oliver-i-got-saved-by-the-beauty-of-the-world/
She published over 25 books of poetry and prose, including Dream Work, A Thousand Mornings, and A Poetry Handbook. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1984 for her book American Primitive. Her final work, Devotions, is a collection of poetry from her more than 50-year career, curated by the poet herself. She died in 2019.
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Mary Oliver: Wild Geese 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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