"The wild geese" by Mary Oliver

From the beginning till the end of the poem the poet uses ‘you’ repeatedly, giving the poem a personalized tone.  She says that you shouldn't have to bow down to societal constraints or put yourself through hardships to repent what you might have done in the past. Instead you should be able to embrace what comes naturally to you. The line ‘ .. let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.’ seems to refer to the way animals rely solely on their instinct. It is this instinct that should overpower your rational thinking so as to enable you to love what you love.

The line “ tell me about … the world goes on” seems to convey that, the world is not going to stop for you, it will not judge you by your actions. Instead it will go on as it always did, molding itself around you, accepting you.  The poet goes on to explore various images of nature- the sun, rain and its movement across landscapes, as well as the landscapes themselves. The poet talks of the wild geese, which “high in the clean blue air, are heading home again”. The geese are used as a metaphor for the kind of person that the poet wishes for you to be; ‘high’ as in happy and free and ‘heading home’, the word home denoting a family, where you are accepted with all your flaws and gifts, alike.

As the poem goes on the poet seems to expand the horizons of the poem, beginning with a personalized you, and then expanding it to nature (including the sun, birds etc) to finally end with your imagination. She says that “the world offers itself to your imagination” making the world only as big as your imagination.  It beckons to you, like the geese, to announce your place “in the family of things”.