"WILD GEESE"

Mary Oliver is one of America’s best-loved poets. Her luminous poetry celebrates nature and beauty, love and the spirit, silence and wonder, extending the visionary American tradition of Whitman, Emerson, Frost and Emily Dickinson.

Wild Geese is a selection of her best-known poems, including the title-poem and 'The Journey'.

Summary And A Brief Analysis::

--“You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.”

(We all make mistakes in life and we all have regrets. We have an impulse to somehow make amends, to ask for penance, to suffer for our sins. Instead we need to deal with these mistakes, just like animals do, and not ask for do-overs. We need to live with the consequences and not beat up ourselves over it.)

--“You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.”

(Do not let these impulses for do-overs’ overpower your innate instincts to seek joy. We are inherently good and while some of our choices may have been bad... that is not our nature and we must never lose our basic good nature.)

--“Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.”

(Let us discuss our observations and conclusions of our behaviors that cause us distress. We will each see that we are not alone in this.)

--“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 the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.”

(We can be so self-absorbed in our suffering that we lose sight of the fact that no one else is affected by our inner turmoil. We magnify these troubling thoughts way beyond their significance. All this while the world continues to move on, waiting for no one.)

--“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,”

(Your frame of mind is a matter of perception. You can spend all your time weighed down by thoughts of the past and what you might have/should have done. Or you can open your eyes to the present and all the mundane beauty there is to be harvested by simply taking the time to let it wash over you.)

--“calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.”

(We're all really the same bunch of conflicting emotions and defensive stances. Allow yourself to be authentic in all things, allow your good will to drive it all, what makes life interesting is that we all have something unique to offer, for the greater good of life and nature. And mainly, we all belong.)

--Also, I think she is reminding us that we, like the wild geese, are first and foremost animals. We inhabit the same world as other animals and we , like them, should respond to our environment in a natural, animalistic way. She wants the reader to find his/her place in the world.

Animals don't have a concept of right and wrong; they don't have regrets; they don't punish themselves for behavior that is in their nature. She is telling us that we should exult in our bodies and not be ashamed of them. Accept them, and move on. However difficult things may seem, there’s always that silver lining. We shouldn’t let the world move on without us, due to our troubling thoughts. But instead harvest them for the greater good.

The main theme in her poem as seen is- ‘Nature and Humanity’ , and how they differ. Not only that but how animals and humans differ. Animals don’t let their mistakes stop them from moving on with their lives, where as we humans, let our emotions get the better of us and threaten not only our judgment but also our zest for life.  All in all, she just wants to help those lost souls, find the light again and move on.

-Nivedita Rao