Q & A: 9/11/09 Memorial.

I have been asked about the Poem that Vice-President Biden read Friday at the World Trade Center ceremonies. It is a poem by Mary Oliver named the Wild Geese. Here it is:

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

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver published by Atlantic Monthly Press© Mary Oliver

In a historical sense the term "Wild Geese" often refers to the Irish Diaspora throughout the world especially to those who left their homes and became soldiers in foreign armies.