Thursday, March 11, 2010

Thursday Poem - The Great Affair

The great affair, the love affair with life,
is to live as variously as possible,
to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred,
climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day.

Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding,
and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours,
life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery,
but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

Diane Ackerman

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It takes courage to live like that, to dare, to try, to risk everything, to give up the "smallness" of one's life for a grander vision....to jump knowing the net will appear. May we all be so courageous this day.....

kerrdelune said...

Such living takes the kind of high wire courage and sense of adventure that most of us are only aiming for much of the time. How grand it would be to live one's whole life this way - full of patience, wonder, curiosity and spirit. Diane Ackerman has it in spades and jeroboams and barges.

Tabor said...

It also takes a bit of tenacious energy surge every day!

the wild magnolia said...

You know I love a good mystery. :)