The Shed Notebook: Mary Oliver and Wild Geese

As many continue to mourn the passing of poet Mary Oliver, I have been reminded over and over through social media the poems she penned that had resonated with me. I reviewed my blog posts and reread eight posts I have written that included Mary Oliver poems. I revisted this poem today and decided to post it again. 

It is one example of how she could arrange words in a way that made perfect sense to the reader right away. The message wasn't hidden. There wasn't complicated language. She simply reminded us that the world does offer itself to each of us, it calls to us like the wild geese.

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.

-Mary Oliver