Mameen

(For John O’Donohue)

Be infinitesimal under that sky, a creature

even the sailing hawk misses, a wraith

among the rocks where the mist parts slowly.

Recall the way mere mortals are overwhelmed

by circumstance, how great reputations

dissolve with infirmity and how you,

in particular, stand a hairsbreadth from losing

everyone you hold dear.

Then, look back down the path to the north,

the way you came, as if looking

over your entire past and then south

over the hazy blue coast as if present

to a broad future.

Recall the way you are all possibilities

you can see and how you live best

as an appreciator of horizons

whether you reach them or not.

Admit that once you have got up

from your chair and opened the door,

once you have walked out into the clear air

toward that edge and taken the path up high

beyond the ordinary you have become

the privileged and the pilgrim,

the one who will tell the story

and the one, coming back from the mountain

who helped to make it.

--David Whyte

[Hiking in the Connemara]