From within

This is not to make up for three weeks of absence from blogging. I received a message from a friend today and it made a profound impact. I didn't realize that this blog, this escapism, actually inspired someone. And I got to think why I'm really doing this. So, I remembered this  poem by Mary Oliver that was stuck on my wall at the office for years (don't know why I took it off) and it all dawned on me: It's that soft animal from within. And all these things that I write about is feeding it and nurturing it. And if this exercise inspires someone along the way, it just makes it so much more worth it.

Wild Geese 
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.

© Mary Oliver