Everything is Waiting for You


by David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.


3 responses to “Everything is Waiting for You”

  1. mikkelina Avatar

    This is such a beautiful poem (as well as the next one)…thank you for sharing. YOu are really working openly and genuinely on each step you take. I admire that and i can not possibly imagine how painful it must be and how easy it would be to just give up on life.

    Deb, i like what you wrote too. So true!

  2. Carol Owens Avatar
    Carol Owens

    Yes, yes, yes. Since I walked back into nature, found through Mary Oliver’s poetry introduced to me by my therapist when I was feeling so confused, life blooms in my soul; not enough time to take all of her gifts in; begin each new waking day with her as my guide. Awesome relief.
    Take her offerings, even the sadness of creatures suffering doesn’t make me turn away. Instead cry at the suffering of the bears, giving my heart full of love for each of you. I can look at the suffering with less anger now.

  3. deb Avatar

    Beautiful.
    It’s funny, I often walk alone in the woods down by the river but don’t feel alone there. Not with the trees, the clouds, the river, all of them whispering their secrets to me. All around is life, connected in a way that we seem to have forgotten, that we come from the earth and return to the earth. We are part of it and when I spend time with the trees, they gently remind me of this.

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