This Week’s Poem: “You Do Not Have to Be Good” by Mary Oliver

I found this poem a while back on Maggi Dawn’s blog. I don’t think I agree with it’s basic premise: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves,” but the imagery and language nevertheless speak to me (much as the serpent spoke to Eve in the garden maybe).

If you find this poem meaningful and would like to purchase some of Mary Oliver’s work, you can click on the pictures and/or links at the bottom of this post. When publishing non-original work on this blog, the idea is not to rip off an author, but to help others discover his or her writing and to encourage others to support the authors printed by buying their books.

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, New and Selected Poems

New and Selected Poems: Volume One

New and Selected Poems, Volume Two

Thirst: Poems

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