Sunday, June 6, 2021

The Way

 


Traveler, there is no path.
The Way is the path.
Let us walk forward, as the path
unfolds under our feet, he said,
though all the while he knew
we were on it together only briefly.

Yes, there was pain.
I had believed I needed someone
to complete me, but it was by
traveling alone that I grew whole.

We cannot eliminate loneliness,
but we can hold each other.
I learned that love is not someone
giving to me; it was in giving to others
that my spirit was set free.

There is the path we see before us,
familiar, recognizable, and there is
the way under the way, which is
the soul's slow, incremental passage.
Everything I need is right here
- in flawed abundance,
the poet said.
We are a single salmon swimming upstream
among a thousand others.
We are one feather on the wingtip
of a flying bird. We are wave
and ocean both. We are even,
sometimes,
Sky.

I walk the way under the way 
in trust, in gratitude:
a cloud, a leaf, a weed,
here as briefly as
a butterfly.


Inspired by "The Way Under the Way" by Mark Nepo - the italicized words are his.


4 comments:

  1. I love this.

    I like the thought that love is not someone giving it to one but in giving to others.

    I also like the idea that the way under the way is the soul's incremental passage.

    Really a beautiful reflection, Sherry!

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  2. Singing along with a song means loving with the ear. The technical term is intertextuality, but the bouquet is ours. How freeing ... B

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  3. i just read a book entitled "The Obstacle is the Way", essentially on Stoic philosophy- and this is very much so ~

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