poetry pocket: initiation ii, nina bogin
"my legs could take me anywhere: into any country, any life. // the air, dazzling with sand, grew dense with light--"
dear little voice,
it is perhaps our belief in the possibility of our being found in the world, and of our moving into it and then finding ourselves, that contains as much beauty and terror as one little voice can take.
and then more of it, as we walk into it. if we choose to.
it sounds simple, but it is a tremendous discipline, to find out what your life can be.
because these legs could take you anywhere. into any country.
into any life.
we all remember the days of vital youth where the world was at your feet- did you have it for a day, for an hour at seventeen, or once at twenty? maybe you didn’t at all. but you certainly had an intuition of it; that it was possible.
you wouldn’t be here otherwise. with these words.
delighting in this is a vital force that must be kept alive at all times and always.
it is easy for a little voice to feel dizzy with their freedom.
there is so much to devote yourself to. there is so little time. and there is all that sweet beauty and terror in between.
but there is one thing i know and that is that delight is the recovery of possibility.
to know that your certainty is here, and that it is calm and ephemeral, but that that too is sweet in itself, almost sweet as coarse-grained chocolate, is a salve.
whoever you are, please enter your life today with all the mysterious notions and tender questions you can take, and legs and joints and ankles and a love for the strangeness and grace of that place, whatever place, that lies before your feet.
i know it feels like leaving in the dark in a windstorm with nothing to hold on to.
but, little voice, i am reminded of mary oliver’s the journey:
“But little by little, as you left their voice behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do --determined to save the only life that you could save.”
- Mary Oliver, The Journey
but the stars are beginning to burn through that sheet of clouds.
and those legs— they could take you anywhere.
anywhere.
this i know.
love,
ars poetica.
Why is Mary Oliver showing up in so many of my readings in just the last day or two?
Not coincidence.