Mary Oliver, “The Journey” [Poetry for Epiphany]

I’ve enjoyed posting poetry series themed around the Christian year recently (see “Poetry for Lent,” “Poetry for Easter,“ and “Poetry for Ordinary Time“). As a follow-up to the “Poetry for Advent” and “Poetry for Christmas” series, I am continuing that theme with a series called “Poetry for Epiphany.” The season of Epiphany, runs from the end of Christmastide up to the beginning of Lent. Epiphany focuses on the revelation of Jesus and His early life, beginning with the revelation of Jesus as King to the Magi.

I continue this series of Epiphany poetry with Mary Oliver’s poem “The Journey.” Thomas was an Anglican priest and a leading Anglo-Welsh poet of the 20th century.

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 voice 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 that you could save.