The Journey

See, I was feeling real awful because of stuff (you know how stuff is). So after lunch I wandered into the Borders to look for words to calm me down, comfort me. Instead of the self help, I headed for the poetry section and found Mary Oliver. I remember Martha Beck reading Mary Oliver at her dying friend's bedside and feeling calmer as the sweetness of the words rose up and soothed her grieving soul.

I thought, heh. If it could do it for her, it could do it for me.

So I opened the book at random.

And came across the following.

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice -
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
'Mend my life!'
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do -
determined to save
the only life you could save.

And I felt better.

Do you?