Layers

Posted by on Jun 8, 2009 in Blog, Yoga Readings | Comments Off

Reading — Koloa 06/08/09

I have walked though many lives
Some of them my own,
And I am not who I was,
Though some principle of being
Abides, from which I struggle not to stray
When I look behind,
As I am compelled to look
Before I can gather strength
To proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
Towards the horizon
And the slow fires trailing
From the abandoned camp-sites
Over which the scavenger angels
Wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
Out of my true affections,
And my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
To its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
The manic dust of my friends,
Those who fell along the way,
Bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
Exulting somewhat
With my will intact to go,
And every stone on the road
Precious to me.
In my darkest night,
When the moon was covered,
And I roamed through wreckage,
A nimbus-covered voice directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art to decipher it,
No doubt the next chapter
In my book of transformations
Is already written.
I am not done with the changes.

Stanley Kunitz — ‘the Layers’

Be Sociable, Share!

Related Posts





Author | Paul Reynolds
This time 'round Paul is posing as Yogi, Illustrator, wacked-out Cartoon Wizard, Writer, Poet, Author, overseer of the "Living the Question" Blog, father, lover, prisoner of the wild Divine Crazy, and more stuff he hasn't even dreamed up yet.....


Comments are closed.