The Soft Animal of Your Body

On Sunday I posted about being on the brink of a major fall-apart, which caused a dozen great people to write in telling me to take some time for myself.I couldn’t seem to take time away though and so therefore wrote something both Monday and yesterday. Things aren’t exactly better so here comes the part where I do stop, probably just for a day or two but even that will be huge to me. I'll put up last week’s column tomorrow since I do that every week anyway to give myself at least one day off and then, well, I’ll just have to see where I am.For now here is the amazing Mary Oliver with a poem I think I never really felt the truth of until today. It’s called Wild Geese and it goes like this:

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove 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 rainare moving across the landscapes,over the prairies and the deep trees,the mountains and the rivers,Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear 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 placein the family of things.