When You Are Lost
Instructions for Navigating the Darkness
When you are lost in the woods
everyone telling you it’s no surprise
that a thing like this could happen
it’s important to remember that
no one is ever truly lost.
When they say if only you’d kept left
then none of this would have happened
but here you are in the wildness of a life
you didn’t know you were leading
and it happened
there is no comfort found in easy explanations.
When it’s just you and the dark
suggesting things both invisible and cruel
no amount of advice can save a person
from the insanity of their own mind.
Only feet can carry you now
so long as you remember to stay true
to the only path you’ve known.
Everyone gets lost sometimes
at least those who dare to make a new way.
But no one ever tells anyone
how terrifying it is to leave a trail
others have walked before
in an attempt to find another.
At night there are beasts
which howl in every direction and from within
calling for destruction.
Sometimes the loudest sounds you hear
are the thumps of your own heart
insisting you lie down in black grass
and stop moving.
But there is something quieter
on the other side of the mountain
where only suggestions of civilization can be heard
or maybe just the wind.
There are voices that live inside the stillness
peace to anchor any soul set adrift
reminders that every noise in the dark
is life calling to itself
hopeful encouragements from a hidden source.
And each time you come to a dead-end
you will encounter a familiar presence
greeting you in words whispered under breath.
And when you reach for invisible hands
grasping for salvation
you will find those same fingers pointing
to the only one who could ever bring you home.
“In the beginning there was the darkness”, John O’ Donohue says, and it remains at the center of all things. The way, down, deepest parts of our hearts, the deepest parts of ourselves, knows the texture of the dark better than anything else. It is the place from which all possibility emerges. From where everything comes, and to where everything returns to again and again and again.
Beautiful poem. "Only feet can carry you now."