Friday, May 14, 2010
Be Prepared to Swelter (poem)
BE PREPARED TO SWELTER
If you want to go there,
check your boots and your
water bottle carefully.
Find the map
that the old one gave you
so long ago
and do your best to
follow it,
though often
you will make the wrong turn,
go astray.
Be prepared to swelter
under many suns,
drown
in countless rivers.
You will be shipwrecked many times,
or else burnt to cinder,
dust to dust.
You will meet strange winged creatures
who have no names,
beings descending
from the sky
or rising up like cloud specters
from below.
They will tell you
how to continue,
what paths to follow,
but check carefully
what they say.
Sometimes you will fall
into canyons or caves,
and will not know
how to get out
until you see a
a faint light coming
from a crack or crevice,
lit wings beckoning.
.
When you at last arrive,
you may not remember
who you are,
what you were seeking,
why you came.
It will not matter.
Now only silence will do.
( from "A Cloth of Fine Gold")
