I Am Going To Start Living Like A Mystic, Ed Hirsch

Hello Poets,
Looking for something to be this year? Ed Hirsch takes a walk to find his path.
Best,
Sam


I Am Going To Start Living Like A Mystic

Today I am pulling on a green wool sweater
and walking across the park in a dusty snowfall.

The trees stand like twenty-seven prophets in a field,
each a station in a pilgrimage – silent, pondering.

Blue flakes of light falling across their bodies
are the ciphers of a secret, an occultation.

I will examine their leaves as pages in a text
and consider the bookish pigeons, students of winter.

I will kneel on the track of a vanquished squirrel
and stare into a blank pond for the figure of Sophia.

I shall begin scouring the sky for signs
as if my whole future were constellated upon it.

I will walk home alone with the deep alone,
a disciple of shadows, in praise of the mysteries.


by Edward Hirsch, from Lay Back the Darkness, 2003