Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before—"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!
Mary Sarton was a Belgian poet.
SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: How do you relate to the notion of becoming yourself? Can you share a personal story of a time you felt alive with your song 'made so and rooted by love'? What helps you remember that you have time to live and be still?
On Dec 16, 2020 Sergio wrote :
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun
What a beautiful invitation to slow down and be still. We spend so much of our lives madly chasing that which only comes when we are stopped dead in our tracks by life. The cracking of the grand ego and its illusion of control. The birth of something simple and real. What point is it to live a long life that is not really yours? Oh to live a single moment as my most whole and authentic self. One single moment as my deepest me. My deepest me is God.
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