Poetry saving America Day 11 #NationalPoetryMonth

Today's poem brings us halfway through the list of Twenty Poems That Could Save America. Tony Hoagland selected Mary Oliver's "Wild Geese" for this spot. If you would like to hear the poet herself read this work, follow this link.

wild geese

Photo by J. Harrington

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

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.

If Hoagland has written anywhere about why he chose this particular poem by Oliver, we've been unable to find evidence of such. Oliver is known as one of America's best-selling poets. She has drawn criticism because her poetry is considered so accessible. On the other hand, Hoagland contends that poetry, to save America, should return to a mainstream position in American life and, to do so, needs to be more accessible. We lean heavily towards Hoagland's contention. Oliver has long been one of our favorites, as have wild geese. We have, and have read (and reread), a number of her volumes of both poetry and prose. Reading just the words on the page, "Wild Geese" provides us with a strong sense of relief, as well as a release from meeting expectations, our own and others. As one of the world's few superpowers, could America benefit from similar relief from the obligations that accompany such responsibility. Could such be found in a poem like "Wild Geese?". How many of us would need to read this poem, to help save America, so that the entire country could feel that sense of release? So that America could realize its "place in the family of things."

If you suffer the misfortune of being unfamiliar with wild geese, we offer "The Geese Return" from Aldo Leopold's magnificent A Sand County Almanac as inducement to become more familiar.

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