CLXXV

Life doesn’t work the way people lead you to believe. It’s not always an upward slope. Sometimes there are downfalls. Sometimes there are pitfalls. Sometimes there are plummets back to the bottom where you started. Sometimes you lose your foothold. Sometimes you forget the direction you were heading in. Sometimes you lose the battle and the war. That’s how it is. 

CLXXIII

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.

[Jean Campbell for W Magazine]

LXXIV

Life doesn’t work the way people lead you to believe. It’s not always an upward slope. Sometimes there are downfalls. Sometimes there are pitfalls. Sometimes there are plummets back to the bottom where you started. Sometimes you lose your foothold. Sometimes you forget the direction you were heading in. Sometimes you lose the war. That’s how it is. 

But only sometimes. 

And sometimes, you win. 

[Images by Min Nomchong via Summersite]