It may be that when we no longer know what to do,
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go,
we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled in not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
Wendell Berry
DOING NOTHING
I balance
on one foot, then the other,
reaching in for the pebbly berries
suspended on red whips and canes,
a lush clinging. One edge,
I reach in, the hone of a thorn
not unlike the white
of mosquitoes beneath the leaves.
I pick my way in,
as if this discipline
has nothing to do with the moon
which last opened
red, then paled
to the pale of a petal
in a still, black sky.
Slowly, I pick my way in,
skillfully, a means that
has nothing to do with
doing harm
or harvest.
For this moment, I forget
the pain that wants to
forget pain, and practice
touching lightly.
I watch my hands learn
their way past each
edge, each horizon,
lightly, touching
until between each berry
there is such space
I no longer have to hold
back, let go, or grasp.
Doing nothing, I
no longer wait for whole
other worlds to break open,
more beautiful than this one
whose wild darkness
stains my fingers,
my mouth, my tongue.
Margaret Gibson
Going too fast for myself I missed
more than I think I can remember
almost everything it seems sometimes
and yet there are chances that come back
that I did not notice when they stood
where I could have reached out and touched them
this morning the black shepherd dog
still young looking up and saying
Are you ready this time
W. S. Merwin
