poetry wednesday : let go, return

February 6, 2013 in General, poetry wednesday

Let Go, Return

This is the need, the deep necessity of every life:
To scatter wide seed in many fields,
But build one barn.

This is our blunder, to have built
Gilt shacks for every seed,
And followed our sowing on fast anxious feet,
Desiring to grind the farmost grain.

Let go. Let go. Return
Heighten and straighten the barn’s first beam.
Give shape and form. Discover the rat, the splintered stair.
Throw out the dry, gray corn.

Then may it be said of you:
Behold, he had done one thing well,
And he knows whereof he speaks, and he means what he has said,
And we may trust him.
This is sufficient for a life.

-Josephine W. Johnson

Let go, let go, return. Be trustworthy. Mean what you say. Do one thing well. Follow through. Let go, let go, return. Build one barn. And may it be a gorgeous one. May it be a deep red one that stops you in the right sunlight, makes you stop and see.

(With thanks to this blogger for reminding of my post of this poem a few years ago.)

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.