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.