Monday, September 12, 2005

Mary Oliver: The Journey

Here's another poem that speaks to me. It's for the enneagram type twos.
The Journey

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.
- Mary Oliver

4 comments:

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The Humanity Critic said...

Good post. Just passing through, I'm liking the blog by the way.

jo_jo said...

This is my favourite poem at the moment. Because I am doing something new and scary (starting a business) and believe me, those voices, their melancholy is truly terrible.

I noticed you are posting about gifted adults so I thought I would pipe up and say hi. I'm a gifted adult too! And I blog about it, so I thought you might want to check it out.

Best,
Joanna
http://overexcitable.blogspot.com