Pause for Poetry

 I love Mary Oliver's poetry.  It's earthy.  It's spiritual.  I feel like she knows me. The following poem, The Journey, is quite appropriate for New Year's Eve. 

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.   

 

Happy New Year to my dear, devoted readers! I hope for each one of you that you recognize your own voice and follow where it leads you in 2014.