"whyte" poems
The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding
then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
when you thought you would fall, and the way forward
always in the end the way that you came, the way
that you followed, the way that carried you into your future,
that brought you to this place, no matter that it sometimes
took your promise from you, no matter that it always
had to break your heart along the way, the sense
of having walked from far inside yourself out into the revelation,
to have risked yourself for something that seemed
to stand both inside you and far beyond you,
that called you back in the end to the only road
you could follow, walking as you did, in your
rags of love and speaking in the voice
that by night, became a prayer for safe arrival…
by: David Whyte
excerpt from SANTIAGO
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 8:05 PM UTC
Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again
Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.
Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens
so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.
Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that
first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.
Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out
someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.
You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.
Mar 20, 2015
Mar 20, 2015 at 11:12 PM UTC
All this petty worry
while the great cloak
of the sky grows dark
and intense
round every living thing.
All this trying
to know
who we are
and all this
wanting to know
exactly
what we must do.
But what is precious
inside us does not
care to be known
by the mind
in ways that diminish
its presence.
What we strive for
in perfection
is not what turns us
into the lit angel
we desire.
What disturbs
and then nourishes
has everything we need.
What we hate
in ourselves
is what we cannot know
in ourselves
but what is true to the pattern
does not need
to be explained.
Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born…
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 1:38 PM UTC
.*England... no wolves... oh well... the next best "spirit animal"..? Bacardi! no wait... Whyte & Mackawy?! no... **** what could it be... and believe me, Maine **** cats share a disposition of curiosity with this feral creature... this Robin Hood... what animal is it? hmm...*
it was supposed to your generic,
bog-standard Saturday afternoon,
i was given the pleasure of
cooking dinner...
Xacuti chicken curry with
star anise & nutmeg
from the Goa region
of India and
a curry from Sri Lanka...
absolutely beauties...
evidently...
all that heating of the spices
on a pan and then blending
them in a coffee mill...
seriously spread like a forest fire...
not too long... well,
by the time i finished
all the prep for the second curry,
and was already letting it
simmer...
to my honest disbelief...
and this was mid afternoon,
about half six -
bright as ******* daylight...
who's this?
hello?
you like the smell i see?
god...
what a pristine healthy example
of the feral -
and the most beautiful eyes...
had to take a picture...
so i asked again?
does it really smell that good that
it has given you the kind
of cheek and audacity to risk
climbing out from your
safety prior to nightfall?
**** i heard before that
i am a good cook...
but you, dear fox -
have paid the biggest compliment,
ever.
Aug 25, 2018
Aug 25, 2018 at 6:01 PM UTC
This is not
the age of information.
This is not
the age of information.
Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.
This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.
People are hungry
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.
-- David Whyte
from The House of Belonging
©1996 Many Rivers Press
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 2:20 AM UTC
I heard of a man
who never owned a
television.
Instead he bought
a set of solid oak
bookshelves stained
like mahogany.
With the money
he saved on cable,
he filled them with
classics like Plato,
Aristotle, and Dostoyevsky.
He studied Darwin
and Descartes, and
memorized poems by
Whyte and O'Donohue
Because he never
made the switch to
high definition, he
could afford trips to
Rome and Tuscany.
Walking those ancient
streets and resting
in those heavenly fields,
he learned the art
of attentiveness,
minding the
genius loci
of a place,
and setting
one's cadence to
the breath of the wind.
And in the end,
he had a few books
of his own,
but they taught
nothing new
other than
how to truly live.
Jan 16, 2017
Jan 16, 2017 at 10:16 PM UTC
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
-- David Whyte
from Everything is Waiting for You
©2003 Many Rivers Press
May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 at 2:07 AM UTC
.
The sails, the wind the deep blue sea...
Life untethered is the life for me--
War is brutal upon the raging swells
the clashing sword and cannonball...
we pray against a bitter wind
the tattered sails, they rise and fall...
Rare to touch the earth below our feet
to always heed the sirens call...
The smell of death on salty air
their final dance in this aquatic realm...
Liquid dreamers hoard their take
while whiskey eyed captains clench their helm...
Sailing through the Isle of Whyte
shattering its' mirrored waters...
taking all the gold we can find
to raise our sails and daughters...
The goblets of gold we raise each night
are toasts to leaving Rome...
We'll make new trails across old wakes,
we'll crash through seas of foam...
You can take pirates off the sea
but it will always be their home...
Feb 17, 2010
Feb 17, 2010 at 12:54 AM UTC
In that first
hardly noticed
moment
to which you wake,
coming back
to this life
from the other
more secret,
moveable
and frighteningly
honest
world
where everything
began,
there is a small
opening
into the new day
which closes
the moment
you begin
your plans.
What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep.
To be human
is to become visible
while carrying
what is hidden
as a gift to others.
To remember
the other world
in this world
is to live in your
true inheritance.
You are not
a troubled guest
on this earth,
you are not
an accident
amidst other accidents
you were invited
from another and greater
night
than the one
from which
you have just emerged.
Now, looking through
the slanting light
of the morning
window toward
the mountain
presence
of everything
that can be,
what urgency
calls you to your
one love? What shape
waits in the seed
of you to grow
and spread
its branches
against a future sky?
Is it waiting
in the fertile sea?
In the trees
beyond the house?
In the life
you can imagine
for yourself?
In the open
and lovely
white page
on the waiting desk?
~ David Whyte ~
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 12:47 PM UTC
John James Stanley Whyte
why would you not
do what was right
man of the cloth
man of the sea
(at least in uniformity)
privileged hypocrite
evader of consequence
Doctor of Divinity
all that's divine
about you, is me
Used my mother
because you could
refused to acknowledge
you're in my blood
was it due to the class divide
that you found it so easy
to throw us aside?
Whenever she wanted
to punish me
she'd list the ways
I took after you
say I was created
in your image
say that your visage
was mirrored in me
that the nose I hated
was exactly like yours
and that was hard to take
She showed me a cutting
someone sent to her
from the Scotsman I think
or perhaps some local rag
from Edinburgh, where you were
saying you'd been bound over
for indecent exposure
from the window of your Manse
where you stood naked
though whether ***** it did not say
And she'd beg me
not to turn out like you
and I would ask
in my innocence
what she meant by that
"He's a ladies' man" she'd reply
and I had no clue
what she meant by this
yet even then
the idea of nakedness
sent a tingle up my spine
though I didn't like
what I had to show
felt it wasn't really mine
You had a life of comfort
while ours was hand to mouth
did anything ever stick to you
did your conscience ever twinge
did you ever even wonder
what became of me?
I'm not sure why I never yet
tried to track you down
perhaps it shows my utter contempt
or on the other hand
maybe I felt being rejected once
was once more than enough
and a second time would be
two more than I should take
yet at times I wonder
what fate had in store for you
because if your karma
didn't catch up with you
it sure as hell got me
Cynthia Pauline Jones 23/9/2013
Mar 17, 2014
Mar 17, 2014 at 7:38 AM UTC
"When the Thin Whyte Duke
And the Prince lay colde
When the fools stande talle
And the bigots bolde
The man of orange shall seize the throne
From the one they calle "The Clyntoone Crone"
Then men wille weepe and children waile
(The internete declare a "FAILE")
To no availe fore I have seene
The worlde will ende in twenty hundrede and sixteene!"
Nov 10, 2016
Nov 10, 2016 at 10:24 AM UTC
SANTIAGO
The road seen, then not seen, the hillside hiding
then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you
as if leaving you to walk
on thin air, then catching you,
holding you up,
when you thought you would fall,
David Whyte.
The Covid Pilgrimage
Walking in the red dust
Made of the remains of the many dead.
There is still a path between
The broken walls and dying trees.
Black swans flying over me.
The sky is uncomfortable,
Twisting grey and dark clouds, tumbling.
The pestilence covers the low hills like fog.
Tendrils and squalls blowing towards me,
Leaving me afraid, masked, and cloaked.
There are others, masked and covered.
Mostly they avoid me like I am dangerous,
Because I am
For a seemingly never-ending time
The Orange King cavorted ahead.
Lying, shaking his scepter
Then he stumbled and fell away
Leading the unwary far into the wilderness.
I can still hear their cries,
That now sound much more like screaming.
After an impossible time
I have reached the crest of a low hill.
And there—could it be—so far away,
there is a light, a beacon on the trail.
I feel a roaring in my ears,
My eyes blurred with tears.
It changes colors but it is still there,
A light shining at the end of this Camino.
I am still walking in the red dust,
Still mostly alone, cloaked and masked,
But now I feel lighter, stronger.
I hear a child laughing, a bird singing,
And the relief of Joy comes to me.
The pestilence still crouches on the ridges
Coils of menacing clouds approach.
But I find myself hoping and reaching out a hand
To those I love.
I am learning a lesson from the pilgrimage.
Today my heart is open.
Gary Gibbens, Jan 2021
Jan 27, 2021
Jan 27, 2021 at 2:19 PM UTC