Galway Kinnell: Wait

It is true that there is some romance in waiting. But it’s also true that there is an unfathomable anguish in it.

THE WAIT. I am reminded that things don’t move along when and how I want it. Because there is a natural flow. There is an order or chaos or inaction to how things happen.

And I have to respect that. That I am at the mercy of time.

I might inwardly scream through it. Grit my teeth through it. And some days writhe in pain and longing. But I have to wait. And strive to be graceful while at it.

It’s like being that child again from the jeepney, repeatedly asking her mother ‘are we there yet?’. This child will grow up and keep on asking that. And it will learn to not speak about it too loudly anymore.

Wait
Galway Kinnell

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.