Loving. Fiercely.

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 Sea in You :
Twenty Poems of Requited and Unrequited Love
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press