1. Read the poem 

  2. Do your own reflection on it, noting what it inspires in you

  3. Feel free to use your own reflection as your prompt or…

  4. Use the selection of prompts below the poem

  5. Pick one that inspires you and write (feel free to use only one or write several poems using different prompts) or…

  6. Don’t use any of the provided prompts and follow your inspiration from wherever it comes

Wild Geese

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 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.

—Mary Oliver


Please join in for Round 9 of Writing From The Inside Out by attending the December 2020 read-around sessions on Friday afternoons (except Dec 25). (it’s free, fun, a great way to share, and reading a poem is optional). If you have not registered, click the button below; and if you have registered, you do not need to register again, simply use the link sent to you in your confirmation email. Register Here:

Note: Next Read Around is December 11, 2020 at 4:00 PM PST

My Thoughts

This is one of the most beloved poems written by Mary Oliver, a favorite of many (at least in my circles). It has always struck me as strange that so many of us grow up cursed with inadequacy, or we secretly believe we are imposters, and we live as troubled guests on the earth. Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild geese, captures the longing to be free of this curse in the opening line: you do not have to be good. She goes on with a stunning declaration that repentance is not necessary and gives a solution much closer to home, found in the wisdom of the body.

The poem puts human misery and despair in perspective by reference to the forward movement of nature that simply goes on. She then embeds human experience in the same context. Her repeated use of “meanwhile” juxtaposes nature’s self-acceptance against the human tendency to judge ourselves as lacking and being out of place in life. We too, if we let our imagination follow nature’s guidance, can hear the call of wild geese as if the honking announces our own place in the family of things and, because of that, finally find ourselves at home in the world.


Week 35 Prompt Menu

  1. Use negation as Mary Oliver has done: start with a prompt: “You do not have to be…” (You do not have to be lost to be a lover of roads. Or using her fomat: You do not have to be wise. You do not have to author a best-sellng book of answers to wear your life well. You only have to let your mind wander the untroubled backroads you once loved…)

  2. Write a poem of repentance. We normally think of repentence as an act of contrition and an effort to make amends by changing one’s attitude in life. But I ran across this in my brief dip into etymology: In the New Testament, the word translated as 'repentance' is the Greek word μετάνοια (metanoia), "after/behind one's mind", which is a compound word of the preposition 'meta' (after, with), and the verb 'noeo' (to perceive, to think, the result of perceiving or observing). So, you could write about how your perception of something past has changed over time.

  3. Write from the prompt: “The soft animal of my body loves…” As a stretch, write about what the soft animal of your body loves that you are hesitant to love or feel resistant to loving.

  4. Write about something that you want to love or are learning to love. Consider something that you love but do not cultivate or actively delvelop in your life. For instance, I love to take photos, but I rarely do anything with the photos. When I am out in nature and get a good shot, I often imagine how nice it would be to collage the photos together or print and frame them. But alas, very few get such treatment.

  5. How does nature put things in perspective for you? You could start with some worry or concern and then use “meanwhile” to juxtapose that against the ways of nature.

  6. What does the world offer to your imagination?

  7. Write a poem announcing your place in the family of things.

  8. Use whatever else inpsires you from the poem or from anywhere else in in life.