Mary Oliver Wild Geese Summary

Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese, is a beautifully illustrated poem speaking of life and our life in nature. She speaks of the way you should live your life, the way you should love yourself, the beauty of nature and compares us to geese. There is a lot of symbolism used in this poem, which is really just saying that we are one with nature and that we should listen to ourselves and nature more.

The speaker describes life throughout the poem. She talks about how we are connected to nature and how we are distracted from it and how that could be destructive. She references the bible, and Jesus walking through the desert. I do not believe she is necessarily disrespecting the bible or telling people not to follow the bible, but I believe that people

are too consumed with religion and other selfish gains. People often forget that there are more ways to be good, rather than to just go to church and give to the offering plate. We need to help ourselves by connecting to nature and to people and to help people as a whole race. The speaker says,
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of
The rain
Are moving across the landscapes
I believe that the writer is saying to keep moving forward. Even though there are storms, natural disasters, etc., nature heals and moves forward; it always does. Life goes on and you should not let things hold you back. Everyone has the capability to heal themselves and move forward in life and to grow stronger then the person they were before.
The speaker compares us to animals, saying that we need to fulfil our inner needs which is our animal instinct.

“You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves,” symbolizing that we need to get in touch with our animal instinct and nature. Your mind and body both have ways of letting you know when you are fulfilled and, also, when you are needing or lacking something. If you listen to your instincts, you will be better off. “Calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,” the speaker writes. I believe she is showing that we still have our instinct like animals and we need to use it. Birds, for example, always know what to do. They know to sit on the egg, they know to push the baby out of the nest so it can fledge, and they know to fly in which direction as needed to escape the cold. We have that ability if we listen to

it.
The speaker claims that “your body” has a “soft animal” within it, and that you need to let it “love what it loves.” This idea of self-indulgence and personal pleasure is directly opposed to the previous deception of self-abasement and repentance.

Therefore, while the first three lines tell you what you “do not have to do,” these two lines explain what you ‘only’ have to do. (Hacht)

This student is pointing out how natural it is to follow and have your instincts. You may enjoy the things that cause you to separate from nature, but really, you need to become one with nature. Oliver’s poem is actually pretty persuasive. In the beginning she is illustrating how you do not have to do certain things to obtain happiness, but toward the end she is talking about your satisfaction with these others things that will actually satisfy you more by doing the one-with-nature-things.

You only get one life and you should really base your decision making off of what is good for you and what makes you happy so that you may live a happier and healthier life. There are so many things that make us depressed and distracted up from what is important. Then, when we have nothing left for us to do, we find another distraction to detract us from the previous one. I strongly believe that we should spend more time of ourselves. Doing things that make us happier, more aware, closure to nature. Evolution created us from nature; therefore, we are

nature.