• Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

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• "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."