Working Together

We shape our self
to fit this world

and by the world
are shaped again.

The visible
and the invisible

working together
in common cause,

to produce
the miraculous.

I am thinking of the way
the intangible air

passed at speed
round a shaped wing

easily
holds our weight.

So may we, in this life
trust

to those elements
we have yet to see

or imagine,
and look for the true

shape of our own self,
by forming it well

to the great
intangibles about us.

- David Whyte

Cartography of Community

We die containing a richness 
of lovers and tribes, 
tastes we have swallowed, 
bodies we have plunged into 
and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, 
characters we have climbed into as if trees, 
fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this 
to be marked on my body
when I am dead.

I believe in such cartography - 
to be marked by nature, 
not just to label
ourselves on a map
like the names of rich men and women 
on buildings.

We are communal histories, communal books. 
We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.

― Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
(arranged quote)