Wild Geese

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2004

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Desert

Oliver opens her poem with a strong symbol of desolation; the desert. She writes, “You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles through the desert repenting” (Lines 3-4). Oliver doesn’t want her reader to repent, but she strengthens this argument in writing out the image of someone walking through the desert on their knees. You can see the dry, hard, cracked earth and easily imagine the difficulty with which one would move through it. The desert is not always a place where humans thrive; it is a bleak and extreme environment for those not accustomed to living in desert climates. The desert is full of hard and prickly things, like rocks and cacti. If water is a symbol for life, the desert, at least in popular opinion, is absent of it. In beginning with this arid scene, we have a greater understanding of what Oliver wishes to move away from; the poem moves away from this barren land of punishment toward one that’s a bit more accepting of life as we know it.

Geese

Geese are an incredibly important symbol in Oliver’s poem. They appear twice at the ending of the poem, in addition to their placement in the title. Geese are indicative of plurality; it’s so rare that we would write or say “goose.” Constitutional to our understanding of this animal is the idea of a flock, a family. Geese, then, allow Oliver to emphasize her ideas in the final line of the poem when she affirms “the family of things” (Line 18). Humanity all flies in the same flock together; the geese symbolize loyalty and unity. The modifier of “wild” in front of the geese imbues both a sense of naturalness and free will. The geese and the family that they symbolize are free to move about the world, and yet they belong, they are of the earth. The geese are an important tool through which the poet is able to enforce all of the poem’s major themes.

Home

Home is another important symbol in Oliver’s poem. It relates to the symbol of the wild geese and ideas of family and loyalty. In her first mention of the wild geese in the poem, Oliver writes, “Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, / are heading home again” (Lines 12-13). These symbols work together to enforce one another. Home is an important symbol for the poem’s message because it reasserts a sense of belonging, a place for the addressee of the poem to comfortably land. Home is a far cry from the desert with which the poem began; it is both inviting and known. In the idea that one “returns” home, the reader understands the cyclicality of the world. Even if one finds themselves on their knees in the desert, they can always return to the home. In the poem’s insistence of the world and nature, the reader can bring those ideas to the symbol of home and further understand the sense of universal belonging for which Oliver argues.