After Mary Oliver's Wild Geese

In my most recent poem I mentioned that two poems came to me last week about softness. The first you can find here. The second began with a line borrowed from Mary Oliver's famous poem, Wild Geese: You do not have to be good.

And so I wondered, how I might use her poem - the structure, the pacing, and even some of her lines - as inspiration for this poem about the wisdom of knowing when to be soft, and when not?

Like Wild Geese, I wove in an image from the natural world, a crane near a beloved pond. And like Wild Geese, I hoped to communicate the belonging we find in the natural world, and the belonging we find when we honor our own knowing, and the belonging we find when we're gentle with ourselves.

After Mary Oliver's Wild Geese

You do not have to be soft.
You do not have to pry yourself open
for just any one who wants to enter.
You only have to crack the door for those
who tread into your chamber with care.
Tell me about hurt, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile your heart beats on.
Meanwhile the rise and fall of your breath reminds
you that you breathe oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide
and this means that you matter.
Meanwhile the grey crane, making his arc
across the pond, searches for trout for tonight's dinner.
You remember the last time you saw the crane
as you sat on the pond's edge and tossed pebbles
into the water, looking for cleansing.
Whoever you are, no matter how confused,
the pond offers her milky waters, a cool bath on hot July days
returning you over and over to what you know is true –
what's yours and what's not, and what you need to toss
into the water so you can float again.

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