Sharing the Grail

where we drink from the source of all memory

Photo: © David Whyte

Sharing the Grail

When we arrive, and sooner
than we think, at that final goodbye
we seem to have anticipated so clearly.

When we arrive at the place
we have understood until now,
only through distance.

When we sit at the bedside
of the loved one as if sitting
by a well where we drink
from the source of all memory;

when we sip together from the grail
of that common memory
and we taste an essence
of love from that memory
that until now we could never fully say,

we are getting ready to be ready
to give the goodbye
we came all along to give.

And if our faith
and the vulnerability
of that faith,
and the wounded
nature of that faith
is felt finally and fully
at the side of that well,
we find ourselves
speaking completely and utterly
the love that we thought had
turned only to memory.

So that after the words
of goodbye are said
everything around us
in the quiet room
and everything spreading
out from the room
becomes like the well itself,
holding the same sacred water,
which is never just still water,
but a hidden flow always arriving,

a never-ending invitation
to drink from the depths,

and perhaps, most of all,
an invitation to somehow rest
in those depths: to rest in that love
that you spoke and they heard,

to wave confusion goodbye,
as you enter
the hallway of presence,
to accompany them
as you always
wanted to accompany them,

and then, to bring everyone
they loved with you,
those you have loved too
and even, those you tried to
and could not,

and then, to make room
inside you, for every single guest.

And above all to be generous now,
as you pass around the grail
of water, saying,

‘This will do.
For now and for eternity.’


-from Still Possible

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