The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save.

by Mary Oliver

I've always liked this poem. I read it in a couple of books, and then I copied it into my notebook of quotations, poems, and songs. Whenever I come across it, I find something different and it becomes profound for me in whole new ways. I've been searching for a good title for my blog. Yesterday in class, my professor read this poem for our opening devotion. The phrase "sheets of clouds" stuck out in my mind. When I went back to my notebook to read it again last night, the lines around that phrase really spoke to me and my life right now. I hope this blog will help me to find a voice that I can recognize as my own. And so it became the title of my blog, and is the first entry as well. Here goes!