See our Privacy Policy
Gratefulness
The way forward, the way between things, the way already walked before you, the path disappearing and reappearing even as the ground gave way beneath you, the grief apparent only in the moment of forgetting, then the river, the mountain, the lifting song of the Sky Lark inviting you over the rain filled pass when your legs had given up, and after, it would be dusk and the half-lit villages in evening light; other people’s homes glimpsed through lighted windows and inside, other people’s lives; your own home you had left crowding your memory as you looked to see a child playing or a mother moving from one side of a room to another, your eyes wet with the keen cold wind of Navarre.
But your loss brought you here to walk under one name and one name only, and to find the guise under which all loss can live; remember, you were given that name every day along the way, remember, you were greeted as such, and treated as such and you needed no other name, other people seemed to know you even before you gave up being a shadow on the road and came into the light, even before you sat down, broke bread and drank wine, wiped the wind-tears from your eyes: pilgrim they called you, pilgrim they called you again and again. Pilgrim.
from David Whyte’s collection, Pilgrim ©2012 Many Rivers Press
Posted with kind permission from the poet
Two nights after he died, all night I heard the same one-line story on repeat:…
For times of grief and sorrow, we offer this curated collection of poems as a…
Somewhere someone needs help. Send love. It matters. If you can’t get there yourself, then…
This site is brought to you by A Network for Grateful Living, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. All donations are fully tax deductible in the U.S.A.
© 2000 - 2022, A Network for Grateful Living
Website by Briteweb