Wild Geese

I've been thinking of poetry lately, and the fact that I don't write it anymore.  I'm not even sure I know how to write it, or that I've been particularly inspired to write it.  But I know that something in me misses poetry and the reading of it.  When I mentioned this to a friend yesterday, she shared with me the following poem.  It struck me as so beautiful, so inspiring, and so comforting that I wanted to share it with everyone I possibly could.

So here you go, world.

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.