David Whyte: Essentials

by David Whyte

the last line in many respects is the essence of the poet’s work, to work with the questions ‘that have no right to go away’ in the life of an individual, in the life of a relationship or marriage, and in our collective conversations in an increasingly fraught, worldwide society.

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.

When we fight with our failings, we ignore the entrance to the shrine itself and wrestle with the guardian, fierce figure on the side of good.

LOVE IN THE NIGHT Falling in love is experienced physically like a real ‘falling’, the disorienting sense of ground giving way toward the mysterious tidal embrace of the other, or more disturbingly, falling toward a part of our self we had never quite understood, toward a form of happiness we often feel we do not deserve, and to a depth we did not feel we could venture to breathe in, ‘as if swimming under the deepest arch of the ocean.’ There is also a strange, tidal coming and going of edges and boundaries, influenced by everything it seems but our own will. In love we subvert the everyday structures of the life we had built so carefully and raze them to foundations on which a new, shared life can be built again. Unrequited love has its own form of _fearful falling, but falling into a full felt and reciprocated love we face the most difficult, most revealing and most beautiful questions of all: are we large enough and generous enough and present enough; are we deserving enough, and ready enough to hold the joy, the future grief, and the overwhelming sense of privileged blessing that lies in that embrace?