I Am Going To Start Living Like A Mystic, Edward Hirsch

I Am Going To Start Living Like A Mystic

 

Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater

and walking across the park in a dusky snowfall.

 

The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field,

each a station in a pilgrimage -- silent, pondering.

 

Blue flakes of light falling across their bodies

are the ciphers of a secret, an occultation.

 

I will examine their leaves as pages in a text

and consider the bookish pigeons, students of winter.

 

I will kneel on the track of a vanquished squirrel

and stare into a blank pond for the figure of Sophia.

 

I shall begin scouring the sky for signs

as if my whole future were constellated upon it.

 

I will walk home alone with the deep alone,

a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries.

 

~ Edward Hirsch ~

 

(Lay Back the Darkness)