Returning to Where I've Never Been

t's very human to have an understanding, to have a dream, to grasp for a moment a larger sense of things, and also very human to then get lost in the details, entangled in the problems along the way.
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It's very human to have an understanding, to have a dream, to grasp for a moment a larger sense of things, and also very human to then get lost in the details, entangled in the problems along the way. And so, we forget what we understand, what we dream; we forget the larger sense of things. But when we are returned to the depth of life, as we always are, it feels both familiar and new. This is a poem about such a moment I fell into the last time I was in New York City.

Returning to Where I've Never Been

I'm sitting in Bryant Park
and the light through the trees
has stopped my mind. At last
nowhere to go.

I was here twelve years ago.
So many stories I could tell
but as with all migration,
everything has changed
and nothing has changed.

I am older, gentler, less afraid,
stopped more easily by subtle
things, only subtle because
of our noise.

So the story is this:
I went in search of you
and found myself.
I went in search of God
and found the magic of light
waiting in everything.
And so I search for wisdom
only to fall into this life of
feelings too deep for words.

We work so hard
trying to get there
but I think this dream of want
is God's trick, because
without burning it up
we'd never accept here.

A Question to Walk With: Can you describe a moment you fell into that was too deep for words? Tell its story to a friend.

For more Poetry for the Soul, click here.

For more by Mark Nepo, click here.

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