I was struck and inspired by a homily our Reverend Sue Browning gave recently. I am a knowledge seeker and a student of thoughts and actions, choices and acknowledgements. She mentioned this poem called The Layers by Stanley Kunitz and I was intrigued.
A thoughtful piece about looking for ourselves, our good moments, our bad moments in the time that has passed and the anticipated time of the future. Choosing how to be with it. Be with our lives and our choices. How to judge them, share them, keep them, and let them go.
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.
This 70 something man summarized what I would hope I could say at his age too. And thus maybe I can learn to let go sooner with his help.
And Coming Soon, the video walk through of my newly rearranged downstairs!
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Amen!! Layers not litter. Get weighted down by the garbage, don’t we? I am keeping this poem.
I’m glad that you like it Shannon. It hit me the right way.
Love to you,
Shalagh
I’d never heard of it before and I loved what I heard of it. Perspective is my Achilles heel.