09/17/2022
REVELATION MUST BE TERRIBLE
Revelation must be
terrible with no time left
to say goodbye.
Imagine that moment
staring at the still waters
with only the brief tremor
of your body to say
you are leaving everything
and everyone you know behind.
Being far from home is hard, but you know,
at least we are all exiled together.
When you open your eyes to the world
you are on your own for
the first time. No one is
even interested in saving you now
and the world steps in
to test the calm fluidity of your body
from moment to moment
as if it believed you could join
its vibrant dance
of fire and calmness and final stillness.
As if you were meant to be exactly
where you are, as if
like the dark branch of a desert river
you could flow on without a speck
of guilt and everything
everywhere would still be just as it should be.
As if your place in the world mattered
and the world could
neither speak nor hear the fullness of
its own bitter and beautiful cry
without the deep well
of your body resonating in the echo.
Knowing that it takes only
that one, terrible
word to make the circle complete,
revelation must be terrible
knowing you can
never hide your voice again.
…
The fire of a real, physical sense of revelation in the world may be one of the most nourishing experiences we have in life, but it is almost always accompanied by the sense of our previous identities being overwhelmed; of a certain kind of radical undoing, a vulnerability and a new voice, not to begin with, quite recognized, but ours now, and one that will claim any revelation not merely as insight, but as a new life. DW.
..
‘REVELATION MUST BE TERRIBLE’
From RIVER FLOW
New and Selected Poems
©David Whyte and Many Rivers Press
…
Sunset from Ballyvaughan
Photo © David Whyte
May 7th 2022 Co Clare. Ireland.
