Friday, March 6, 2015 – “These few words are enough.”
I posted David Whyte’s, “Enough,” on January 21, but something about the words caught my attention this morning: as a splendid sun rose over Parking Lot D at 7:01, not quite half way from its December solstice rising point over the corner of Calihan Hall and the June equinox when the sun will bedevil east bound drivers on all Detroit’s east-west surveyed mile roads. When that day comes, assuming a sunrise like today’s, it will drive some of us nuts for a few minutes. But it’s worth it. And all the work that we turn to on this early March day, here in clean-rinsed sunrise, or somewhere in harder weather, whether we enter the day with spring in our step or carrying burdens that we cannot ignore. Here in Detroit, in battered Boston, around the world, people set their shoulders to the day’s demands.
Cold outside here too, under the sun. By noon it will be cold and windy . . . still winter, no? “It’s worth it,” says the wind; we mean to say that too as we catch each other’s eyes hurrying to get our work done. David Whyte’s short poem makes a good breathing space for people in a hurry.
Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses. Weekend blessings too.
john sj
Today’s Post: “Enough”
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
David Whyte, in Where Many Rivers Meet, 1990
