Letting Go

Letting Go

After feeling driven my whole life
something very near the center has
unwound and I can no longer hurry
through airports or return all my calls.

And sometimes people I barely know
swim up like old worn fish to show me
the map of their gills, and the one long
gash of something they once swallowed,
and how it has cut each breath since.
And I am honored to warm them
like a blanket. But when alone, I
find it hard not to watch
what I swallow.

When alone, these things
I've wanted to know since birth
feel so unanswerable, I must
have been torn from them.

I'm sure a hawk doesn't know it's a
hawk. I'm sure a spirit doesn't know
it's being spiritual. Or a screen door
slapping, like a tired life, in the night,
if it's opening or closing.

Though we give up the murky fears,
we still can't know our worth, any-
more than a faceless treasure
can fathom why
it was boxed
or buried
or saved.

A Question to Walk With: Journal about one habit you used to keep that no longer matters to you. How did this change occur?

Sounds True recently published a new, expanded edition of Inside the Miracle: Enduring Suffering, Approaching Wholeness, which gathers 28 years of my writing and teaching about suffering, healing, and wholeness, including 39 new poems and prose pieces not yet published. One of the great transforming passages in my life was having cancer in my mid-30s. This experience unraveled the way I see the world and made me a student of all spiritual paths. With a steadfast belief in our aliveness, I hope what's in this book will help you meet the transformation that waits in however you're being forged. "Letting Go" is an excerpt from the book.

For more poetry for the soul, click here.

For more by Mark Nepo, click here.