Journal of Sacred Work

The following poem of Midsummer, by David Whyte(left) speaks a prayer beyond anything I might share with you today. If you are not accustomed to reading poetry, take a moment to read this poem at least twice. First, let his words flow over and through you with no effort to interpret. The second time through, look at his careful and surprising choices. Poets rarely use the word "beautiful." They work to find, amid the "laced structures of thought, the words that will help us know and feel that beauty.

Midsummer Prayer

In midsummer, under the luminous
sky of everlasting light,

the laced structures of thought
fall away

like the filigrees of the white
diaphanous

dandelion turned pure white and
ghostly,

hovering at the edge of its own
insubstantial

discovery in flight. I’ll do the same,
watch

the shimmering dispersal of tented
seeds

lodge in the tangled landscape
without

the least discrimination. So let my own
hopes

escape the burning wreck of ambition,
parachute

through the hushed air, let them spread
elsewhere,

into the tangled part of life that refuses
to be set straight.

Herod searched for days looking for
the children.

The mind’s hunger for fame will hunt down
all innocence.

Let them find safety in the growing wild.
I’ll not touch them there.

-David Whyte