Provincetown: Mary Oliver and Wild Geese

UPDATE: I've highlighted the words suggested for omission, including two of my own. I want to know the real one!!

I've posted the following poem by Mary Oliver before. It's one of my favorites and one of her best. But here's something that may interest you about it:

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Mary Oliver lives in Provincetown. This summer she was interviewed by Provincetown Arts, a gorgeous annual magazine that features the many talented artists in town. She was asked about this very famous poem of hers--if she would change anything about it if she were writing it today.

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Her reply was one word. She said she would leave out one word. Then she smiled and challenged her readers to guess what that word is.

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I don't know the answer either so I can't offer more than the interesting challenge of taking a look.

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Fellow artists and poets and writers and painters and otherwise creative souls: what word do you think she would leave out?

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Wild Geese - Mary Oliver.

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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 movin across the landscapes,

over the praries and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue air,

are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers you imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-

over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.