The Well (Excerpt)

…But the miracle had come simply 

from allowing yourself to know 

that you had found it, that this time

someone walking out into the clear air 

from far inside you had decided not to walk 

past it any more; the miracle had come

at the roadside in the kneeling to drink 

and the prayer you said, and the tears you shed

and the memory you held and the realization 

that in this silence you no longer had to keep 

your eyes and ears averted from the place 

that could save you, that you had been given 

the strength to let go of the thirsty dust laden 

pilgrim-self that brought you here, walking 

with her bent back, her bowed head 

and her careful explanations…

From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte