House of Belonging - David Whyte
sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
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A Message from
the Wanderer - William E. Stafford
Today outside your prison I
stand
and rattle my walking stick:
Prisoners, listen;
you have relatives outside. And
there are
thousands of ways to escape.
Years ago I bent my skill to
keep my
cell locked, had chains smuggled
to me in pies,
and shouted my plans to jailers;
but always new plans occurred to
me,
or the new heavy locks bent
hinges off,
or some stupid jailer would
forget
and leave the keys.
Inside, I dreamed of
constellations—
those feeding creatures outlined
by stars,
their skeletons a darkness
between jewels,
heroes that exist only where
they are not.
Thus freedom always came
nibbling my thought,
just as—often, in light, on the
open hills—
you can pass an antelope and not
know
and look back, and then—even
before you see—
there is something wrong about
the grass.
And then you see.
That’s the way everything in the
world is waiting.
Now—these few more words, and
then I’m
gone: Tell everyone just to
remember
their names, and remind others,
later, when we
find each other. Tell the little
ones
to cry and then go to sleep,
curled up
where they can. And if any of us
get lost,
if any of us cannot come all the
way—
remember: there will come a time
when
all we have said and all we have
hoped
will be all right.
There will be that form in the
grass.
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A Settlement - Mary Oliver
look,
it’s spring. and last year’s loose dust has turned
into this soft willingness. the wind-flowers have come
up trembling, slowly the brackens are up-lifting their
curvaceous and pale bodies. the thrushes have come
home, none less than filled with mystery, sorrow,
happiness, music, ambition.
and
i am walking out into all of this with nowhere to
go and no task undertaken but to turn the pages of
this beautiful world over and over, in the world of my mind.
_________
therefore,
dark past,
i’m about to do it.
i’m about to forgive you
for
everything.
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Keys - Nancy Henry
when things got hard
i used to drive and keep on driving
once to north carolina
once to arizona
i’m through with all that now, i hope.
the last time was years ago.
but oh, how i would drive
and keep on driving!
the universe around me
all well in my control;
anything i wanted on the radio,
the air blasting hot or cold;
sobbing as loudly as i cared to sob,
screaming as loudly as i needed to scream.
i would live on apples and black coffee,
shower at truck stops,
sleep curled up
in the cozy back seat i loved.
the last time, i left at 3 a.m.
by new york state,
i stopped screaming;
by tulsa
i stopped sobbing;
by the time i pulled into flagstaff
i was thinking
about the canyon,
i was so empty.
thinking about the canyon
i was.
i sat on the rim at dawn,
let all the colors fill me.
it was cold. i saw my breath
like steam from a soup pot.
i saw small fossils in the gravel.
i saw how much world there was
how much darkness
could be swept out
by the sun.
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Flames - Billy Collins
smokey the bear heads
into the autumn woods
with a red can of gasoline
and a box of wooden matches.
his ranger’s hat is cocked
at a disturbing angle.
his brown fur gleams
under the high sun
as his paws, the size
of catcher’s mitts,
crackle into the distance.
he is sick of dispensing
warnings to the careless,
the half-wit camper,
the dumbbell hiker.
he is going to show them
how a professional does it.
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