Thursday Poem - Become Becoming

Wait for evening.

Then you'll be alone.

Wait for the playground to empty.

Then call out those companions from childhood:

The one who closed his eyes

and pretended to be invisible.

The one to whom you told every secret.

The one who made a world

of any hiding place.

And don't forget the one who listened in

silence while you wondered out loud:

Is the universe an empty mirror?

A flowering tree? Is the universe

the sleep of a woman?

Wait for the sky's last blue

(the color of your homesickness).

Then you'll know the answer.

Wait for the air's first gold (that

(color of Amen). Then you'll spy

the wind's barefoot steps.

Then you'll recall that story beginning

with a child who strays in the woods.

The search for him goes on in the growing

shadow of the clock.

And the face behind the clock's face

is not his father's face.

And the hands behind the clock's hands

are not his mother's hands.

All of Time began when you first answered

to the names your mother and father

gave you.

Soon, those names will travel with the leaves.

Then, you can trade places with the wind.

Then you'll remember your life as a book

of candles, each page read by the light

of its own burning.

Li-Young Lee from Behind My Eyes