Poetry

I want to know

if you are prepared to live in a world

with its harsh need

to change you. If you can look back

with firm eyes

saying this is where I stand.

— David Whyte, 'Self-Portrait' [from Fire in the Earth]

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squar... See more

when the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

I didn’t even knew I had held my breath

Until my body exhaled when I met you

To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings.

As it has been said:

Love and a cough

cannot be concealed.

Even a small cough.

Even a small love.

But now it has happened,

No use in talking

The silence between me and you

Has never had meaning.

It was, love it, that was all

That was asked.

But now it has happened,

No words for the foretime,

The desperation has made me the same,

Has made me another.

Who looks at the shape of the fish

Grow giant on the side of his bowl,

Who walks on the terrace

Observing fol... See more

And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten,

That Enthusiasm and Life may not cease: arise Spectre arise!