Ceramics from Finland

Learning To Walk by David Whyte

..walked straight forward
then, out of the gate,
through the wood,
along the river,
toward the mountain
and thought of the future
I could make in the world
if I walked toward it
like this,
with my face toward the hills
and my eyes full of light
and the earth sure
and solid beneath me,
walking on
with a fierce anticipation,
and a faithful expectation,
with the sun and the rain
and the wind on my skin
and the old sense…
of many paths
breaking from one path.

So learning to walk
in morning light
like this again,
we’ll take that first step
toward mortality,
giving our selves away
today by walking
out of the garden,
through the woods,
along the river,
toward the mountain,
its simple,
that’s what we’ll do,
practicing as we go,
and
we’ll be glimpsed,
traveling westward,
no longer familiar,
a following wave,
greeted, as we were at our birth,
as probable
and slightly dangerous strangers,
some wild risk
about to break again
on the world.