Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

sweetpotatosweetpotato Posts: 1,278
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.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Barack Obama."

"Obama's main opponent in this election on November 4th (was) not John McCain, it (was) ignorance."~Michael Moore

"i'm feeling kinda righteous right now. with my badass motherfuckin' ukulele!"
~ed, 8/7
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