Intimate Invitation

By David Whyte

​​I just have to look

and I see,

I just have to listen

and I hear.

I need only

the slightest desire

for anything

to find,

it has already

been met,

right

at the centre

of my body.

No need to go anywhere

 it seems and 

“not much to live for”

 you say. 

But you forget 

how you 

once saw so clearly

the brave outline of a single leaf 

you forget 

how you

 were ravished each morning

 by the presence of birdsong. 

how the stream of clouds in the sky

seem to run right through you,

and the sun on your skin seem to pass right through to

some inner complexion. 

how, even when you were stuck,

without faith,

held back and afraid to move even a little

you could be like the beauty we

see in Winter ice, 

just beginning to break and flow . . .

(From David Whyte's Still Possible Collection)