…and of wanting to be someone else

File:Staring At The Sun.jpg

You spend so much of your time
expecting to become someone else
always someone who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you

meanwhile in your life you hardly notice
the world around you, lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself

with whom as you recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long

William Stanley Merwin,   American poet, To Waiting

Becoming the ground

boltonSummer was like your house: you know where each thing stood.
Now you must go out into your heart  as onto a vast plain. Now
the immense loneliness begins.

The days go numb, the wind  sucks the world from your senses like withered leaves.

Through the empty branches the sky remains.  It is what you have.
Be earth now, and evensong.
Be the ground lying under that sky.
Be modest now, like a thing ripened until it is real,
so that he who began it all
can feel you when he reaches for you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Trees at Bolton Abbey, Moone. Co Kildare