[Thespiritexpress] The Layers

[Riantee Rand]

> On Apr 3, 2024, at 19:30, Yasskin Marc via Thespiritexpress <thespiritexpress at lists.mcn.org> wrote:
> 
> Amazing poem here Ed~ !! ~~~~~~ thanks so much for this.
>  ~~ Never done ~ ~~~~  ~~~~~~ forever arriving into a deepening mystery ~ 🙏⚡️
> 
> 
> 
>> On Apr 3, 2024, at 4:31 PM, Ed Balldinger via Thespiritexpress <thespiritexpress at lists.mcn.org <mailto:thespiritexpress at lists.mcn.org>> wrote:
>> 
>> Here's the Stanley Kunitz poem I read in Pathwork class last week that a couple of folks asked me to post.  
>> 
>> Many blessings,  
>> 
>> ~ Ed 
>> 
>> The Layers
>>  
>>  
>> I have walked through 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
>> toward the horizon
>> and the slow fires trailing
>> from the abandoned camp-sites,
>> over which 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
>> wherever I need 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-clouded 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 my changes.
>> 
>>  
>>                     ~ STANLEY KUNITZ <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stanley-kunitz>_______________________________________________
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