Mary Oliver's Wild Geese Mels Love Land #Next100 Poetic Tradition

A poem of self compassion....

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. 

Many thanks to Mary Oliver for this work of Wild Geese and for all her decades of soul work of self compassion. It is deeply appreciated.

‘You do not have to be good.... You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’

Find what you love, and do more of that. Head towards what brings you joy.

Love, Mel