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 your 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.
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2 comments:
Thank you for sharing this poem. It was perfect for me today.
jenelle
You do not have to be good.
(I’m usually not too concerned with that.)
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
(But I did just fly in from Las Vegas and boy are my wings tired!)
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
(Pistachio gelato, Casey Bailey, beer, rosy cheeks and warm bodies…)
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
(My butt is numb from sitting in this chair all day; time for a new job. I think I may move back to MT.)
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.
(If I moved back to MT, I would see and know this.)
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
(Or eating your bag lunch while you sleep in the park.)
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.
(Through the back door, under the narrow stoop, past the pig pen, to the left of the meadow by the needle in the haystack of the life unlived.)
Love and miss you.
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