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You do not have to walk on your knees
2008/05/16,07:52

 

What a refreshing poem it is by none other than Mary Oliver. Tribute to Mary for such an excellent, heart touching poem.

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.

Thanks to www.bridgewater.edu for the image of Mary Oliver.

Thanks to http://www.english.uiuc.edu for the online version of the poem.

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