Wild Geese

 I got through a drive from Los Angeles to Indio and back yesterday (7 hours in the car)  by listening to Anne Lamott's wonderful original seminar on Bird by Bird (available on iTunes -- I highly recommend it to writers, artists or anyone who works alone in a hut).  One thing she says is that everyone should have a copy of this poem pinned on the wall by their desk, so I am re-posting it (from April, 2008).

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.

-- Mary Oliver