Desert Crawling
Walking on one’s knees through the desert as repentance for sins is itself a symbol of sin against nature since that very act goes against instinct in at least two ways. The opening lines of the poem are a direct address to the reader. It is an appeal to understand that the imposition of morality upon behavior that is genuinely instinctive is an offense to nature.
Sun and Rain
The combination of a sunny sky and a rainy sky combine to make them opposites that together symbolize how nature is capable of bringing misery or relief to all the creatures below. While the speaker and reader swap stories of despair, the sun soars in the sky and rain falls from the clouds across the prairies, mountains, and rivers. This image is purposely juxtaposed against sharing tales of despair to reveal how the world moves on without taking notice. It is only humans who complain about drought or floods rather than turning to their instincts to figure out a way to deal with the cycle of life.
The Geese
In effect, the geese symbolize all creatures in the wild which in turn symbolize the freedom of acting instinctively. The geese are the central symbol of the poem only because they are titular creatures. The geese make annual migrations back and forth from north to south as a means of dealing with climate change. They don’t waste time moralizing about it or engaging in political debate or even trying to figure out ways to survive the brutal cold. They just accept that changes in temperate weather to intemperate weather mean repeating the instinctive patterns of migration.
“The Family of Things”
The final words of the poem symbolize how humanity has no special privilege in the natural world but is merely just part of the membership. Within the family of nature, instinct is the rule of law. The speaker is suggesting that if humans learned from the rest of the planet’s inhabitants and behave according to the actual instinct of the species as a whole—which is distinctly different from individual impulsive behavior—and reduce the waste of time spent overintellectualizing their actions, despair would likely not be a commonly shared emotional experience.
