Tilicho Lake by David Whyte

In this high place

it is as simple as this,

Leave everything you know behind.

Step toward the cold surface,

say the old prayer of rough love

and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands

will stare into the lake astonished,

there, in the cold light

reflecting pure snow,

the true shape of your own face.

And for sheer poetic perfection:

“I too am lost; I leave no trace, no mark;
I am a shadow cast upon the dark,
A drop sunk in the sea, and it is vain
To search the sea for that one drop again.” (pg. 213)

We slide back through the gradual dusk. Lone voices in the distance. Bats flitter past us, dipping over the water surface. Flat calm now. The shore things, white gray rocks and dead trees doubling themselves in the dark mirror around us. The illusion of infinite space or of no space. Ourselves and the obscure shore which it seems we could touch.

this is my story, a reality i waked through looking back to it didnt find any trail of effect on it was a boat in a river, and here i am telling the story of the river hoping it will change it course—