“You only have to let the soft animal of your body/love what it loves.”
The opening lines of this poem are a direct address to the reader. That is because this poem is an expression of a philosophy of life which context clearly situates as belonging to the poet and not just the speaker. Thus, the speaker and poet for this particular poem should be viewed as inextricably linked. The opening lines are words of comfort to the reader, insisting that there are no expectations of being “good,” and that, even if they believe they have been “bad,” their sins could not possibly be enough to warrant an absurdly self-hating act of penance. This opening pushes to one side the entire history of the construction of man-made morality so that the speaker can begin their own sort of sermonizing. The metaphorical imagery of the “soft animal” is not intended to be taken literally even in the sense of it referencing the inner essence of a person. Ironically, however, it is literally an allusion to all the soft creatures of the natural world. The advice to readers is to look toward behavior that is natural among those elements around us whose concept of right and wrong have not been corrupted by the higher intellect of humankind.
“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine./ Meanwhile the world goes on.”
In another direct address to the individual reader, the speaker deepens the relationship by offering to swap personal tales about profound unhappiness. Before any such stories can begin, however, suddenly the speaker intrudes—almost rudely—with observations about how the world keeps moving on. This is true when we actually do commiserate with each other’s misery, and it is true while reading this poem. The sky remains sunny until the arrival of rain which is necessary for the trees to grow and rivers to keep flowing and mountains to keep from crumbling. Misery afflicts the natural world, but only humans experience it as despair.
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,/the world offers itself to your imagination”
The wild geese that fly south every winter and then return home do not stop to think about the perils facing them or struggle to find an alternative means of living with the change in climate. They follow their natural instinct to do what must be done. Observing behavior in nature is this poet’s overarching thematic concern. She is routinely defined as a nature poet. The poem is as much a confession about the poet’s own recognition of the futility of fighting against the natural instinct as it is an offering of advice to others based on her own experience. This quote in particular is useful advice to look not just outward, but inward as a way of becoming attuned to those primal interests that drive one. In this sense, “imagination” becomes almost synonymous with “instinct” in that it is suggesting that people sometimes allow a lack of imagination to stifle the instincts trying to motivate them.
