I Have Walked Through Many Lives...
I saw this and found it very thought provoking and inspiring. I felt called to share it.
Stanley Kunitz was 95 years old when he wrote this beautiful poem, “The Layers.” I find some of the most moving lines are these: “How shall the heart be reconciled / to its feast of losses?” and "I am not done with my changes." Most of us who have lived into our seventies, or beyond, know that "feast of losses" and we must not only acknowledge it and recon with it but we must learn to celebrate and embrace it. Only in that way can we move from fear to peace.
The Layers
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.