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.
