Questions
After Jane Hirshfield’s “I am asked a question.”
What have I done with my life, my one wild and precious life?
There is no better question.
I love the sound of this one,
the way wild balances precious.
My life has an answer.
But my life speaks a strange tongue.
There is much I don’t know.
I do know how to hang on, and how to think.
Perhaps I can learn to hear what my life says.
Perhaps I won’t need to choose
or to understand.
I go out into the misty rain.
Fine droplets on my face don’t slow me down.
I can dry off back home.
(italicized phrase is from Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”)
3 thoughts on "Questions"
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She was a keeper. I bet she would have loved your thoughts and talking with you.
wow…wow…wow: “But my life speaks a strange tongue.”
I love that this ends with such a concrete detail that implies the depth of the questioning.