Wild Geese by Mary Oliver // Fiber Friday

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 your 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 landscapes,

Over the prairie and 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 those wild geese, harsh and exciting –

Over and over announcing your place

In the the family of things.