“Questo Muro”
You will come at a turning of the trail to a wall of flame
After the hard climb and the exhausted dreaming you will come to a place where he with whom you have walked this far will stop will stand beside you on the treacherous steep path
and stare as you shiver at the moving wall, the flame
that blocks your vision of what comes after.
and stare as you shiver at the moving wall, the flame
that blocks your vision of what comes after.
And that one who you thought would accompany you always, who held your face tenderly a little while in his hands— who pressed the palms of his hands into drenched grass and washed from your cheeks, the tear-tracks — he is telling you now that all that stands between you and everything you have known since the beginning is this: this wall.
Between yourself and the beloved, between yourself and your joy, the riverbank swaying with wildflowers, the shaft of sunlight on the rock, the song.
Will you pass through it now, will you let it consume whatever solidness this is you call your life, and send you out, a tremor of heat, a radiance, a changed flickering thing?
“Questo Muro” is a poem written by Anita Burrows from her book of poems: WE ARE THE HUNGER Anita Barrows lives in Berkley, California where she works as a clinical psychologist in private practice and as a professor of psychology at The Wright Institute.
REFLECTION:
- What “wall of fire” are you standing in front of?
- To walk through the fire will require courage and you must go alone.
- Are you ready… are you willing to take that step?
- Who do you need to BE to persist?
- What do you need to DO to take that step?