taking a new position
TO BREAK A PROMISE
Make a place of prayer, no fuss,
just lean into the white brilliance
and say what you needed to say
all along, nothing too much, words
as simple and as yours and as heard
as the bird song above your head
or the river running gently beside you.
Let your words join one to another
the way stone nestles on stone,
the way water just leaves
and goes to the sea,
the way your promise
breathes and belongs
with every other promise
the world has ever made.
Now, leave them to go on,
let your words carry their own life
without you, let the promise
go with the river.
Have faith. Stand up. Walk away.
…
TO BREAK A PROMISE
from
THE SEA IN YOU:
Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love’
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press
It’s not easy
to do the hard thing
to lose
to stand
to eat
to sleep alone
to wait at all
much-less,
to be long-time patient
to be strong
to allow the pain
the grief
the tears of exhaustion
frustration
weariness
to press on
to refuse to settle
to believe in spite of loss
to sing on the shores of exile
to fight in the face of minority
to keep the fire warm
to build wells in dry places
to send out love
to melt defenses
to keep touching the lepers
to allow healing to come
to ruthlessly keep letting go
to rise above our stories
to inhabit them completely
to set our boundaries
yet keep opening our hearts
to be prepared
to live ready
to keep saying yes
🤙🏻
Amy Lloyd
When you shift your focus
from what is absent
to what is present,
from what is missing
to what has been given,
from what you are not
to who you are,
from the ravages of linear time
to the immediacy of Now,
you are reconnecting
with love, truth and beauty,
and abundance is yours,
effortlessly.
For in truth,
nothing is lacking where you are,
nothing is missing from the present scene of the movie of your life,
and you are forever full,
and at the point of completion.
The only reason
you cannot find Oneness
is because you never left.
The day is just waiting to be lived.
So breathe in life, friend,
breathe in life.
– Jeff Foster
life: acoustic & amplified 