THE TRUELOVE

There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.

…and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them

and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love

so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you don’t want to any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.

Excerpted from THE TRUELOVE
From ‘The House of Belonging’
©David Whyte and Many Rivers Press

I’ve been reading and re-reading this poem for about fifteen years since the first time I saw the author, David Whyte, recite it at a conference. In 2013 I had an elaborate dinner party for six single women and part of it involved creating corn tortilla valentines with edible markers and candies to toss in to the lake in my town as a releasing of a wish.

my Valentine dinner table and 3 layer heart shaped dark chocolate cake with rose buttercream – it was a fabulous evening

I carried my Valentine to the Tempe Town Lake bridge a few days after Valentine’s Day along with my David Whyte book and read this poem out loud before tossing my corn tortilla in to the only real water I could find in the desert.

Just three years later, on our wedding day, this poem was read as we stood over those rushing Falls releasing all of our past, all of our failures, all of our illusions of lost dreams in to that fierce water while committing ourselves to our future.

Dreams can come true and if I’m not a living testament to that I don’t know who is. I had all but given up on myself and then this.

If you’re interested in reading more of David Whyte’s beautiful poetry, first I highly recommend his book The House of Belonging which houses The TrueLove.. And if you click on his picture below, it will take you to some selected poems you can read online.