Poetry Hour: Entry 8 - "Pilgrimage"

As circumstance and the Lord's good hand would have it, I find myself with a few friends working in film these days. They are all so passionate about it and from that passion they achieve much. They're talented and hardworking; I commend their drive alongside their successes.

Recently, one of my film friends asked me to write for him. He had a quote by Thomas Merton which inspired a short film he was creating. He wanted something poetic to be voiced over it, so he asked me to do the job. He sent me an email explaining why he liked the quote so much and how it applied to his perfectionist work ethic. I took his email, and the quote, and just ran with it. This is the result.  

Pilgrimage

Often,

amidst the waves of

where we

Are

and

where we

Want to Be,

we enter,

suddenly,

a place of

Honesty.

A place where

every part has to be

Flawless;

has to be

Excellent.

Stars are never good enough.

It's the Moon we want.

We carry a

heavy perfection.

And with it

we find

we're floating,

motionless in this

subconscious realm;

in this

Fear of Failing.

Will the

Art

be lost again?

Will we lose

Ourselves

again?

“What are we to gain by sailing to the moon if we cannot cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery…”

It's hard to listen to your

Soul

when you're only thinking about

The Moon.

So now.

Now in this place of honesty;

in this Soul-Gap between who we

expect ourselves to be

and

who we really are,

we realize

it's a beautiful Abyss.

It becomes

a beautiful

Reconciliation,

acknowledging

the distance of

Moon

and the reality of the

Soul.

There.

As we float we realize

the fear of failing must be

tossed away

into the

ocean-space in between.

Only there,

with the weight of it

lifted,

we may sail on.

When the short film is completed, I hope to post it here. What's really cool is that my friend Jessica is the subject being filmed and one of my professors is actually voicing this poem over the shots. How neat is that?! That's pretty neat. And maybe once it's finished I'll think of a proper title for the poem.

For now, I urge you: Listen well -- To your soul when it's crying out for you to slow down. To your mind when it's running too fast to comprehend your thoughts. And let go -- Of that tiresome need to be perfect. Of that one-track-mindedness that keeps you from seeing the beauty around you, the beauty that you're trying to rush out of, the beauty that calls out to you from within you and around you. Pause a moment. Breathe a moment. Reflect and move forward.

Sail on Saints,

Olivia