The Soft Animal of Your Body
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,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Sometimes it feels like life doesn’t give us any choices.
And yet, we always have choices.
“Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
Listen close.
Honor it.
That is your compass.
If it feels like love… if it feels like freedom… you know that is the choice to make.
And when the world calls to you, be quiet enough to hear it.