SELF PORTRAIT It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods. I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned. If you know despair or can se… - David Whyte

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SELF PORTRAIT

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

English
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About David Whyte

David Whyte (born 2 November 1955) is an Anglo-Irish poet.[1][2][3] He has said that all of his poetry and philosophy are based on "the conversational nature of reality".[4] His book The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America (1994) topped the best-seller charts in the United States.

Biography information from Wikiquote

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Additional quotes by David Whyte

We find that, all along, we had what we needed from the beginning and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had experienced the actual heartbreak of the journey.
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