There are doctors, medicines, and even machines
And then there are the poets, like Mary Oliver, who have saved souls. She is so deeply present in her poetry that she invites us into presence with her. Growing up in a difficult home, nature became her mother, her teacher, and her mentor. Her poetry cuts deep to the soul to satisfy our hunger to the essential questions of life. There are those that have said the poem “Wild Geese” saved their life.
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.from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
