I love poetry and good quotes. It is amazing how the stringing together of words can effect a heart as powerfully as Mary Olivers’ The Journey affected me when I first read it a few years ago.
Enjoy xxx
| One day you finally knew |
| what you had to do, and began, |
| though the voices around you |
| kept shouting |
| their bad advice — |
| though the whole house |
| began to tremble |
| and you felt the old tug |
| at your ankles. |
| “Mend my life!” |
| each voice cried. |
| But you didn’t stop. |
| You knew what you had to do, |
| though the wind pried |
| with its stiff fingers |
| at the very foundations, |
| though their melancholy |
| was terrible. |
| It was already late |
| enough, and a wild night, |
| and the road full of fallen |
| branches and stones. |
| But little by little, |
| as you left their voice behind, |
| the stars began to burn |
| through the sheets of clouds, |
| and there was a new voice |
| which you slowly |
| recognized as your own, |
| that kept you company |
| as you strode deeper and deeper |
| into the world, |
| determined to do |
| the only thing you could do — |
| determined to save |
| the only life that you could save. |
by Mary Oliver