"You do not have to be good."
I read that again a few times again before I could get past it. That's what it says. OK. She continues:
"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. ...
Meanwhile the world goes on."
Yes. It does, doesn't it? Here is the world, going on. Nature. Landscapes. Human and non-human. Some wild geese fly overhead. In all the open expanse of prairies and mountains and rivers and lakes, they know exactly how to get to their place, their home. So easy to get lost? Maybe. Or:
"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."
We all need to love what (and who) we love. We all need to listen to the wisdom that we all hear but often choose to ignore, that we already know what we need. We already know where we belong. We just need to accept and appreciate and enjoy what we have: ourselves. We know where home is, and we know what makes us happy.
Our home is not our ideas we have about what we should need or have to have. It is the wisdom of the voice inside that tells us what we love. It may take time to learn to listen and understand this voice, our own truest self. If we stop to listen, we find what we already always knew.
You might find the complete poem here. Or Google it.
