the world offers itself to your imagination...

“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 the 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,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh
and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”

~ Mary Oliver