Starting Close In

To learn a poem by heart is to feel it in my body. To learn a poem by heart is to live with it in my pocket. I’ve long been a fan of Kim Rosen’s book Saved by a Poem. For a time I forgot how it feels to stay close to my own marrow with a poem as my guide.

But sometime a couple of months ago, Irene, one of my beloved yoga teachers, read a David Whyte poem I’d never heard before. (Wonder of wonders!)

And I was hooked. I found it. Tucked it in my bag. Took it with me to the hospital before my knee replacement surgery. For awhile afterwards my brain wasn’t hanging on to words very well. So I read it. A lot.

It felt like it was written solely (or soul-y) for me. It’s my constant companion in Physical Rehab, for reasons that are immediately obvious. But it has also become my heart’s mantra. Start close in.

And so I offer it to you. From the poet’s heart to my heart. To yours:

Start Close In

Start close in,

don’t take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way of starting

the conversation.

Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people’s questions,

don’t let them

smother something

simple.

To find

another’s voice,

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes a

private ear

listening

to another.

Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don’t follow

someone else’s

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don’t mistake

that other

for your own.

Start close in,

don’t take

the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step

you don’t want to take.

~David Whyte, River Flow: New and Selected Poems