You do not have to be good.<br />You do not have to walk on your knees<br />for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.<br />You only have to let the soft animal of your body <br />love what it loves.<br />Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.<br />Meanwhile the world goes on.<br />Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain<br />are moving across the landscapes,<br />over the prairies and the deep trees,<br />the mountains and the rivers.<br />Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,<br />are heading home again.<br />Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,<br />the world offers itself to your imagination,<br />calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –<br />over and over announcing your place<br />in the family of things.