Tuesday, December 15, 2009

.the only life you could save.

It's been a long day, it's freakin' cold (even indoors) and I had originally thought I'd try and write an insightful post about reading Julie Powell's Julie & Julia. But as soon as I got home from work, thoughts scattered with the winds and all I managed to eke out was a short review over at my other blog. I promise a more substantial post on my day off (Thursday) and it will be brimming with thoughts on the aforementioned memoir and maybe, finally, my completion of several Learning To Love You More assignments. For now, though, I'm afraid I am going to have  to skip trying for anything more than this - a poem by Mary Oliver, who everyone should become familiar with. I think it describes (better than I could at the moment) a little of what epiphanies are coming to me now, what thoughts are falling into place.


The Journey - Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

2 comments:

  1. I love Mary Oliver, and I just posted one of her poems the other day! But I need to read more of her poems. She speaks good words.

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  2. You did? Heh, now I feel like a copycat. Ah well...she's great! :) I have a book of her poems you could borrow sometime if you like.

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