Wild Geese

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.

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That line, "Meanwhile the world goes on." That is hard to grasp. I wonder, what is my place in the family of things, now? Yet, with each response to the blog, with each email and phone call and card, I find myself closer to understanding my place, my new place.