Our recent interview with muse Ebyän Zanini inspired us to turn to and enjoy the voices and wisdom of women poets who have influenced her. Ebyän described the poet Mary Oliver’s voice as a ‘voice of the earth and of the sacredness in simplicity. I also love that she is a women of Anglo Saxon descent. To hear that voice so connected to the earth, not as an observer or an anthropological voice, but deeply real and of this earth, is very healing’.
Mary Oliver (1935-2019) was an American poet who’s poetry reflected a deep communion with nature and spoke to the romance and inspiration of simplicity, solitude and amazement.
One of our favourite Mary Oliver poems is Wild Geese which invites us to let go of perfections, to be true to our authentic selves, ‘to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves’ and simply soak in the extraodinary beauty and wonder of being alive.
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
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 —
in the family of things.
over and over announcing your place
