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.
Oliver, M (2004). Wild Geese: Selected Poems. Tarset: Bloodaxe Books.
This poem speaks to me on many different levels. I find it tremendously consoling. Its overriding message to me is “You are ok. You are good enough”. We do not have to keep beating ourselves up over our many flaws and shortcomings. No matter how bad we can sometimes feel, there is a place for us in this world, within this human family, and we are fully deserving of this place.
Suffering is universal, and yet we can be so critical of ourselves and our ‘negative’ feelings. When we have experienced a loss, we might say “I should not feel angry” or “I should get over my grief”. This poem acknowledges our despair. It tells us that it is human to experience such feelings and that it is ok to feel this way. All we have to do is soften our hearts with compassion and find acceptance within ourselves.
It can feel like the end of the world for us when someone we love has died. Our world has ended and yet, as we step outside our front door, everyone else’s world seems to carry on, seems not to have noticed this huge, momentous thing that has happened to us. The traffic, the noise, the people going about their busy day – everything seems so strange in its apparent normality when for us it feels like nothing will ever be the same again.
I am continually amazed how Nature, with her relentless force, keeps carrying on regardless of the many things that happen in this world. Every year as the long winter months continue and the days are still dark, I have this strange fear that perhaps this time spring will not come, that perhaps Nature has finally given up on us. Every year, I am grateful to see how the cycle of death and renewal carries on, regardless of what the year has brought, regardless of how Nature has suffered.
The world keeps turning, it has not stopped, not even for those of us who feel their own world has fallen apart. The world keeps turning and there is a great beauty to it. It shows us that everything in this world is transient, an impermanence that affects not just Nature but also our thoughts and our feelings. The forces of Nature are magnificent and unrelenting and take no notice of the drama that unfolds within us. While we might think it cruel if another person ignored us in our pain, Nature has no other way of being, it cannot stop in its tracks and grieve with us. Yet it is around us, indiscriminate and reassuring, providing us with safe ground to stand on, reaffirming our place among so many of our kind in the world. The poem gives us hope in difficult times – the cry of the wild geese so harsh and exciting, it invites us to take courage and seize the day.