The Act of Leaving

I must have wanted to leave the light

Photo: © David Whyte

The Act of Leaving

I must have wanted
to take this road
of sack cloth and ashes
walking my way to
a quiet aloneness.

I must have wanted
to leave the light
of those eyes
and walk into
the dark,
I must have wanted
not just to find
another,
but the need
to find another.

I must have needed
to disappear
from what I knew
and loved
so I couldn’t be found
by the same eyes
or heard by the same ears,
I must have wanted
to have my heart broken
by being found
in a different way,

I must have wanted
to whisper my way
into another
conversation
with another horizon,
to be heard
by other ears,

and be seen
in another light
and joined to another
world.

I must have wanted
to feel
the pain
of departure
and the distress
and the
heartache
and
I must
have intuited
all along
that first glimmer
on the other
side of sadness.

Looking back
at it all
it is almost
impossible
to believe,
that I stood
in the full
necessity
of that grief.

That I had faith
in what
I wanted,
that
I must have
wanted
what I wanted.


-from The Bell and the Blackbird

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