Today I Have No Wisdom, David Whyte

Today I Have No Wisdom

 

I have walked blessed and bareheaded

on the seashore

with as little wisdom as the opened clam

its dead mouth streaming with sand

or the birds half sunk

in shallow halls of wood-trunk and tide pool.

 

I have listened with the small acuity of

crabshell on rock

of water falling through sand

of the tide coming home

to welcome on by boot-tops

and always

moving everywhere

the sea air is running hands over my open neck.

 

I have never learned to tread quietly here

where sounds are always rushing on the beach

or upward with the gulls,

on an open beach

a voice can be tenacious in the wind

and the chest heaves to snatch a breath

and cry again.

 

For today I have no wisdom but that of sand

heaving from some dream that sleeps beneath the tide

until I come with my voice bellowing

and my small child's heart

and I walk through the sea-spume

like a man walking through sparks

or an intense fire where the heart ignites

and explodes leaving nothing

not an ember of wisdom to warm me

 

It is all consumed in the moment

the dazzling

upward

 

flame of pure presence.

 

~ David Whyte ~

 

(Songs for Coming Home)