“To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice”
This post appeared almost a year ago (April 16, 2020, to be precise). We sibs gathered at our sister Mary’s home for her April 13 birthday.
Here’s how I began the contextual paragraph that day. “I am writing from my sister Mary’s snow-bound home where 20+ inches of snow has blown around for 2 days of blizzard winds (c. 25 mph). Lovely for sure; every few minutes a car drives by the riverfront road.” What a difference eleven months makes! This first half of April 2021has scattered hints of spring here and there around Detroit, though my Lakota daughter-soul friend, Mary Tobacco, tells me that they are digging out from a hefty blizzard today in South Dakota.
April offers unpredictable weather twitches, no? A blizzard-loving person like myself may yet be pulling on my high top snow boots. I’m not taking responsibility for the weather though; “enjoying” does not = “causing.”
Today’s poem by David Whyte has blessed me several times over the Work Day/Hard Time poetry list’s seven-year existence. Best to read the poem out loud, with pauses, several times over the day. Have a blest Wednesday.
john sj
Marinette blizzard for Mary St’s birthday – 2019
Today’s Post: “Start Close In”
Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.
Start with your own
question,
give up on other
people’s questions,
don’t let them
smother something
simple.
To hear
another’s voice,
follow
your own voice,
wait until
that voice
becomes an
intimate
private ear
that can
really listen
to another.
Start right now
take a small step
you can call your own
don’t follow
someone else’s
heroics, be humble
and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake
that other
for your own.
Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.
from River Flow: New & Selected Poems
Many Rivers Press
David Whyte b. 1955
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Whyte_(poet)