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I am sitting with a blank page
In front of me
Ingrid colors forth boldly,
each marker’s snap fortells
a confident set of strokes.
A celebration is coming!
To my left
Zion is delicately, deliberately inking.
A portrait emerges,
fine black blades converge
over the faint orange sketch.
My page (now less blank)
is covered with the
scratches of my holding on
just a little while longer,
keeping watch.
I came back to watch
the glowing magenta lift off,
hungover with grief
and hungry to feel loved.
Not a cloud was in the sky,
just a rich haze hovering over the line.
Rainbows shimmered at my feet
as the muddy blue horizon gave way.
The geese, drifting silently,
took no notice.
The gulls, oblivious to this minor miracle,
laughed their way through yesterday’s celebrations.
I could be here, and I am.
But also I am not—
too caught up in a long-denied truth
and where it might take me.
The sun, now high and yellow and too-bright,
illuminated the edges of my pages
as the geese, now flapping above me,
honked out an invitation.
And I accepted.
Four nights ago I heard
the sweet call of fantastic vision.
Hope of a life well-lived and uniquely played.
And rest.
But sunrise brought a flaming terror,
and burned out the peace I had tended to
over so many previous dawns.
The pain of loss (not now, but soon)
drove me to pull what remained.
But I have begun to dig
in this new, hard ground.
Cultivating the seeds of an invasive peace
that thrives in the cracks between stones
and spreads beyond intention.
A family of three skunks showed me
the way to the lake
and the shore where sailboats,
sparsely docked, stood swaying
under mountain ranges of cloud.
I waited and watched
as the sunrise persisted,
illuminating the foothills.
A window (rose with fiery peach linings)
opened above the dim red burn
and lightning splashed its fierce light,
revealing hidden crags and peaks.
All the while changing, changing.
Tiny, lapping waves watched
and whispered too.
This is not the only shore,
there is another sunrise.
The lump—that deep twist in my gut.
I am holding too tight, even as I let go.
Scooping out my melon of a belly,
emptying it of everything, including hunger.
She doesn’t care for watermelon
but I continue to present it, bowl after bowl.
An offering,
a show of just how far I am willing to go.
As unappealing as my misplaced entrails
and the hunger that is and isn’t.
David Whyte’s writing speaks to me.
A few months back, I wrote about anger, and my journey with it over the years. My friend Brian replied in the comments, suggesting I pick up a book called “Consolations, The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words” by a poet named David Whyte.
I have long respected and admired Brian’s thinking process and philosophy of life (even when we’ve disagreed) so I did the most obvious and easy thing to do: I bought the book, read the short essay on “Anger,” remarked to myself how poignant it was, and put it on the coffee table book pile never to open it again. But the name David Whyte gained a place of esteem in my head, and I’m glad that it did, because when I saw that Sam Harris had a conversation with David Whyte in the Waking Up app (which I use for daily guided meditations and recommend), I took notice. Last week I finally listened to it and it absolutely blew me away. Within the hour long conversation, David read two of his poems (“The Bell and the Blackbird” and “Everything Is Waiting for You”) and an essay on the word Vulnerability from “Consolations.”
Have you ever had the experience of hearing someone plainly, succinctly describe a concept that has been tumbling around in your head, amorphous but forming, slowly slowly solidifying? For me, as I listened to David and Sam talk, it was like bombs kept going off in my brain. David’s words turned a plethora of personal inklings into fully formed, fully realized (and actionable) concepts. These types of moments are unique, but not entirely rare for me, and I realized at once that something significant was happening.
Like a fighter pilot who has been hunting down it’s target, circling and chasing, David’s words through the hour were the missile lock, the final poem he read flipped the safety cover off of the firing pin. Locked and loaded, ready to fire. Insight, ready for action.
Here is the poem, which I share as a window into my experience, an incredible moment that was years in the making. Read it, but also take a moment to hear David read it in the video just under the poem.
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
By David Whyte, from River Flow: New & Selected Poems.
I’ve begun reading David’s book, “The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self, and Relationship” and I am certain I will write more about how David Whyte speaks to me in the coming months.
Leave a CommentI take it as a sign that I am truly living, that all at once I am experiencing
terror and joyful excitement
acceptance and hopeful ambition
deep laughter and slow tears
pride and regret
I am standing at the top of a hill ready to roll down, and I am at the foot of another hill beginning to climb.
I take this as a sign that I am truly living.
