When Answering Your Calling

from Out With Lanterns, a daily poetry practice

                                ~ after Kim Stafford 

Choose the quiet room with good light.
Choose to notice the birds, learn their 
calls and colors. Choose the long way 
home and notice the sky. Choose this path 
that they say is impossible. Then choose hard 
work. Choose to stick it out even when
it seems all is lost. Choose your sound, not theirs.
Can you choose this thing you love? 
Can you hold on through the raging doubts?
Can you choose your truth, your calling, 
when safety seems easier? Can you hold on 
through failure and success? Can you 
honor the still, small voice of the child
who always knew this path was yours?

Photo by Victoria Medvedeva on Unsplash