You Don’t Have to Be Good (But Maybe Listen to Your Ladybugs)
Mary brings the poems. Marcus brings the trauma. Buddha wears the headphones, but says nothing.
How a Goose and a Line of Poetry Found Me on TV
You ever think about how a goose honk sounds like both a warning and a welcome? Or how brushing crumbs off your shirt mid-crisis somehow feels like prayer?
Hi, it’s no-one. I didn’t discover Mary Oliver in a poetry class or during some misty morning walk. I found her during St. Denis Medical, Season 1, Episode 14—an episode titled “Listen to Your Ladybugs.”
In it, a dementia patient keeps softly repeating the line: “You do not have to be good.” A doctor, Bruce, hears it and—being Bruce—takes it personally. He thinks the patient is speaking directly to him, as if gently calling him out for some moral failing Bruce hasn’t even figured out yet.
Then, toward the end of the episode, after the patient says it again, his daughter explains that “You do not have to be good” is the first line of a poem by Mary Oliver. She says her father was a bookworm his whole life, then adds, “It’s funny what ends up being important to you at the end of the day.” He wasn’t critiquing Bruce. He was remembering something that mattered.
That single line—simple, soft, and strangely radical—stopped me in my tracks. I looked up the poem. Then I read three more. And before I knew it, I was knee-deep in grasshoppers, lilies, wild geese, and the kind of poetry that feels like a permission slip for your soul.
The Nature of the Thing: Geese, Grasshoppers, and a Stoic Beard
Mary Oliver’s poetry is what happens when Buddhist mindfulness, Stoic philosophy, and a woodland hike all meet at a quiet intersection.
In “Wild Geese,” she begins with that now-iconic line: You do not have to be good. No need to self-flagellate or audition for moral worthiness. Just “let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” It’s Buddhism without the incense and Stoicism without the lecture.
In “The Summer Day,” she observes a grasshopper with meditative reverence—right down to the way it washes its face—and then drops the line: What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? Casual, earth-shattering stuff.
“When Death Comes” compares mortality to a bear, an illness, and an iceberg—but meets it with wonder, not fear. And in “Morning Poem,” she reminds us the world is recreated every morning, whether or not you remembered to pray, meditate, or check your calendar.
Her lesson? The world offers itself to your imagination. You just have to be willing to see it.
Field Notes from the Philosophical Meadow
- “Soft animal of your body” is now how I justify every nap and snack.
- “Be idle and blessed” might be the best out-of-office setting ever written.
- If Mary Oliver, Marcus Aurelius, and Buddha had a podcast, it would be called Soft Animals & Stoics. I would never miss an episode.
- Oliver’s poetry is less “inspirational quote” and more “gentle cosmic shove.”
- Nature never demands performance. It just keeps showing up. And invites you to do the same.
Why This Post Exists: Because You Might Need Permission Too
We all carry around this low-level buzz of needing to be “good.” Productive. Impressive. In control. It’s exhausting. It sneaks into our jobs, our relationships, even our inner monologue.
Mary Oliver’s poems say something different: You are already part of the family of things. You don’t have to perform your worthiness. Just be here.
That’s why I wrote this. Because sometimes a sitcom doctor misinterpreting a line of poetry is what it takes to realize your own brain might be doing the same thing—trying to turn memory into judgment, wonder into warning. But maybe it’s just a poem. And maybe it’s meant for you, too.
In Praise of Wandering Into Wonder
So take a walk. Or stare at a tree like it’s giving a TED Talk. Let your mind meander. You don’t have to be good. But you can be present. You can be amazed. You can pay attention.
And if all you did today was read this far, that counts.