Dear Erica,
Thank you for your letter which I am confused to see is dated June 9, 1993. I received it last week! I wonder if you still wish to receive a poem for your International Rescue Committee book. If so, here is one of my favorite poems. I love it because it reminds us that all the people of the earth belong to one family. Good luck with your project.
Best Wishes,
Elizabeth Winthrop
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