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.

Happy International Women’s Day! Our correspondent Joyce Kulhawik suggested the beautiful poem, Wild Geese, and in honor of today, we are republishing the poem in its entirety. (And see Joyce Kulhawik’s complete essay about Mary Oliver here.Ms. Oliver reminds us that we can exhale and be ourselves, and that we are good enough. All week we have dedicated RogerEbert.com to articles written by phenomenal women. You can peruse our Table of Contents here because you don’t want to miss those articles or reviews. 

Here are the names of our writers for Women Writers Week 2019: 

Abbey Bender
Laura Bogart
Monica Castillo
Olivia Collette
Valerie Kalfrin
Sasha Kohan
Joyce Kulhawik
Tomris Laffly
Christy Lemire
Violet LeVoit
Jennifer Merin
Nell Minow
Jana Monji
Sherin Nicole
Sheila O’Malley
Kristy Puchko
Carla Renata
Carrie Rickey
Jessica Ritchey
Allison Shoemaker
Justine Smith
Whitney Spencer
Katherine Tulich

Our header photo is a nod to International Nieces’ Day.

Chaz Ebert

Chaz is the CEO of several Ebert enterprises, including the President of The Ebert Company Ltd, and of Ebert Digital LLC, Publisher of RogerEbert.com, President of Ebert Productions and Chairman of the Board of The Roger and Chaz Ebert Foundation, and Co-Founder and Producer of Ebertfest, the film festival now in its 24th year.

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