Why we need Poems at work

“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.” These are the first few lines from the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. I read it over the weekend and it is not leaving me. How distant they feel from the world of modern work.

If we look at how we operate today, it often feels like the opposite is true. We do feel like we have to be good. We do feel like we have to prove ourselves constantly. Not just through the work we do, but through how we show up, how we speak, how visible we are, how consistently we demonstrate value.

Somewhere along the way, work has shifted. It stopped being only about being meaningful, and became, at least in part, about performance. In meetings, we contribute not always to move the conversation forward, but to make sure we are seen. In updates, we shape the narrative so that progress is visible, even when clarity is still forming. In teams, we often optimize not just for truth, but for how things appear.

Performance is not always a problem. But it can slowly move us away from something more honest. Real work is rarely clean. It is uncertain, incomplete, and confusing. But performance prefers something else. It prefers confidence, clarity, and momentum. So we polish. We edit. We present a version that fits what is expected. And in doing that, we sometimes leave behind what is real.

There is another line in the poem that so much shouts the truth at you. “Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.”

The acknowledgment that life continues, with or without our performance, is that important truth. Work continues too. Teams continue. But within that, there is a human experience that does not always find space in our structured conversations.

I keep wondering if the real question is not whether performance is necessary, but whether we are leaving enough room for honesty alongside it. Because teams that cannot be honest eventually struggle to be effective. And individuals who are always performing may slowly forget what it means to just be.

And maybe that is why this poem feels so relevant, even in a corporate setting. It reminds us that beyond all the roles, metrics, and expectations, there is still a place for something simpler. Something more human.

If, even for a moment, the need to perform disappeared. How would we show up at work? Will we be better, will we create more value ? I know it is not possible. but is interesting even as a thought experiment.