Wayfaring
(I would like to briefly comment on the vast difference between knowing what one should believe and actually believing it. I do not know how to pass from one to the other. Sometimes it seems these worlds are hidden in wardrobes.)
Sometimes I am as a leaf on the water,
not knowing how wide the river runs, or how deep,
but feeling the subtle currents on all sides,
nudging me along the streams, rivers, tributaries
to finally join the ocean.
Sometimes I am as a salmon
feeling the waters pressing against me,
nosing upstream and fighting, because even when I don't know the scent of the waters,
I know at the end is a familiar place, from which the water comes.
Sometimes I am a tired shark
flicking my fins just enough to keep the water moving over my gills,
weary and wanting to rest (but to rest is to sink),
enjoying the glide when I find ways to move (to conserve) with least effort
gathering strength to swim again.
But always always
always going home
And when I wash up battered and fish-eaten on the other side
They will know me by my sweater.
At the end of the world, the waters are sweet
(this post contains at least 5 allusions)
3 comments:
Wayfaring Stranger
I'm a poor wayfaring stranger
While traveling through this world of woe
Yet there's no sickness, toil, or danger
In that bright world to which I go
I'm going there to see my Father
I'm going there no more to roam
I'm only going over Jordan
I'm only going over home
that's all.
The Waking
T. Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
(added at this time to a previous post as a retropost, also seeming appropriate to reference here, now.
Not so much now, but I'd been thinking of this poem frequently in the last few days. I only remembered a few verses though, and now that I see the whole thing, it seems even more relevant. But perhaps,.. when is this not relevant?)
Reepicheep: "My own plans are made. While I can, I sail east in the Dawn Treader. When she fails me, I paddle east in my coracle. When she sinks, I shall swim east with my four paws. And when I can swim no longer, if I have not reached Aslan's country, or shot over the edge of the world in some vast cataract, I shall sink with my nose to the sunrise and Peepiceek will be head of the talking mice in Narnia."
* The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C. S. Lewis
Post a Comment