Friday, December 6
David Whyte introduces this poem as leaving and losing, divorce of a dear friend as she leaves her marriage. How many losses of a deep love have readers of the Work Day list lived? Not all are divorces; some tearing losses begin with dying. Is there any grief more powerless than when I come to tell a soul friend goodbye, when I must be the one to look my soul friend in the eye and we hold our look a long time; but finally, I must walk out the door where s/he continues to die. No matter the loss, we find ourselves living our way into the vast absence that opens in us.
David Whyte first explains how this poem came to him; then he reads it. Perhaps listening to his introduction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PK3GhnHOJc), then let him read “the journey,” then step away from where you have been listening, breathe a while, then read the poem in your own voice, with pauses.
Have a blest Advent weekend.
john sj
Today’s Post: The Journey
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.
You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.
November 2, 1955 –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Whyte_(poet)
House of Belonging by David Whyte