READING OF WILD GEESE

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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. 

--Mary Oliver

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Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese” Dream Work,
    (Boston : Atlantic Monthly Press) 1986

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