work is achieved not by creating a hermetic space sealed off from the world, but nel mezzo, in the middle of everything. - David Whyte

We are each a river with a particular abiding character, but we show radically different aspects of our self according to the territory through which we travel.

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 can know despair or 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.

Poetry is the art of overhearing ourselves say things from which it is impossible to retreat.