Winter Morning

Sometimes it is another person's words that hit so close to the heart.  I was looking for a poem that described my sudden urge to bring the holidays home, to enchant my sweet cottage with winter cheer. Instead, this dropped at my feet. Coincidence? I think not.

 

I saw a group of old friends from a former life. The only thing they kept repeating was how my face looked different. Rested? No. Glowing? Maybe. Pregnant? NO. In love? Yes, but I have been in love for a long while. Is that still showing? As I read these words this cold December morn, I realized, I may be glowing. I may be rested. I am in love. For certain, there is no wee one in my womb and that is fine with me. Why do I look different? Perhaps because all of the voices that have been plaguing all of my days are beginning to quiet. I am not pulled in all directions by THEIR desires, by THEIR will.

My own desire to prove myself to the world at large is starting to fade. I am attempting  to look beyond this physical world long enough to catch a glimpse at the bigger picture. The full life. The stream of truth that lies deep in one's own heart. One's own truth. The voices that indicated that those things were the same as pleasing the world at large are moving along down the road, without me...

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