Being Whole
Today, let us unpeel one more layer and take another step towards wholeness. Here is an excerpt from the White Egret by Derek Walcott. Enjoy your weekend all.
Be happy now at Cap, for the simplest joy-
For a line of white egrets prompting the last word,
For the sea’s recitation re-entering my head
With questions it erases, canceling the demonic voice
By which I have recently been possessed; unheard,
It whispers the way the fiend does to a madman
Who gibbers to his bloody hands that he was seized
The way the sea swivels in the conch’s ear, like the roar
Of applause that precedes the actor with increased
Doubt to the pitch of paralyzed horror
That his prime is past. If it is true
That my gift has withered, that there’s little left of it,
If this man is right then there’s nothing else to do
But abandon poetry like a woman because you love it
And would not see her hurt, least of all by me;
So walk to the cliff’s edge and soar above it,
The jealousy, the spite, the nastiness, with the grace
Of a frigate over Barrel of Beef, its rock;
Be grateful that you wrote well in this place,
Let the torn poems sail from you like a flock
Of white egrets in a long last sigh of release.
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