landscape,  natural areas,  poems,  sunsets

Sometimes

An late afternoon walk at Arapaho Bend Natural Area in 2017

SOMETIMES
by David Whyte

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.

Retired. Having fun with photography. Journal daily. Meditate daily. Learning haiku/poetry. Have a love for fountain pens.

4 Comments

  • Cedric

    Nice looking trail Monte. Nice poem too. Nature asks as many questions of us as does life or art. Questions as pointers rather than questions with answers, but that makes them all the more interesting, I would say.

  • Tom Dills

    It’s interesting, isn’t it, that knowing the questions can be harder than finding the answers? Interesting grist for the mill this morning…thanks for sharing! 🙂

    • Monte Stevens

      For me I’m finding poets and philosophers are wonderful at asking us to pause, ponder, look deeply, and take the present moment in. Live in the questions rather than egoic answers. Hope you have a super Awesome weekend 😎