find the one line already written inside you.

April 6, 2011 in Uncategorized

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
small, 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
You are arriving.

-David Whyte

In a world full of hate and war where all reason seems lost, this poem reminds us.

Thank you to Patty Barnett Seitz for pointing me to these words.

As always, I'm celebrating National Poetry Month on 37days with a poem every day. What is one of your favorite poems?

[image from here]

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

8 comments to " find the one line already written inside you. "


KimMailhot

April 6, 2011 AT 8:39AM

I need to be reminded everyday. And poetry, art, and stories and the people who create them always manage to bring me back to remembering.

I love you, Beautiful Heart.

janet smith

April 6, 2011 AT 9:07AM

“something new written in the ashes of your life” …oh. just oh.

Jackie Melnyk

April 6, 2011 AT 1:02PM

Patti:

Thank you for the poetry and thank you for your blog. I confess I miss the regular postings on 37days even though I follow and enjoy 3x3x365. The less frequent postings make me consider and really appreciate all the time and effort you put into 37days. “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone!”

Anyway, a poem I like is “Waiting” by John Burroughs. I initially came to know the first stanza about 30 years ago when I was a teenager and began collecting quotations. I didn’t realize until much later (kind of embarrassing) that there was so much more to the poem.

Serene is the first word in the poem and not a word one would associate with me, however, lately I find myself drawn back to this poem as I strive to pause, to be still, to breathe, to wait.

This is not a new poem, and once again I am struck by the notion that the things I feel and experience are not new, they are timeless.

Many thanks for your work,

Jackie

Jan

April 6, 2011 AT 7:02PM

This is one of my favorites; it’s by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

XXX

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink/
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;/
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink/
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;/
Love cannot fill the thickened lung with breath,/
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;/
Yet many a man is making friends with death/
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone./
It well may be that in a difficult hour,/
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,/
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,/
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,/
Or trade the memory of this night for food./
It well may be. I do not think I would.
…………………………………

Thank you so much for this month filled with such wonderful poetry.

Jan

April 6, 2011 AT 7:06PM

I recently wrote a poem that explained to me the depth of my sorrow/fear/panic over my psychiatrist’s retirement. It’s a poem that I love for what it revealed and I’m also pleased with it as a poem.

For me, that is the magic and power of poetry, whether written by me or someone else.

Van Waffle

April 7, 2011 AT 8:13AM

One of my favourite poems is “The Poet” by Jane Hirshfield:

http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/the-poet.html

Lisa

April 7, 2011 AT 10:53AM

Thank you for sharing this, Patti. David Whyte’s words are the perfect gift to give to a client this morning. I so appreciate you.

Chris

April 10, 2011 AT 1:56AM

Thank you, Patti. So enjoying the poems. Here’s one of my all-time favourites by Jane Kenyon

Let Evening Come

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.