(1935–Current, American)
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.
