The Way of the World

I got a special gift today, a gift that touched my soul in many ways. That made me think that there’s always a gift behind a gift, it only takes to see what you are given not with your eyes but with your heart. The poem he gave me carries more than meaningful words; it is filled with love and understanding, and with his never-ending capacity of reaching my soul and driving away my sadness and my uncertainty.
Some days ago, I wrote something about my inability to decide which path I should take to go on with my life, he read it and he knew he had something to share with me.
The gift started not with the poem itself but with him looking for it inside many boxes he had kept closed for some time. It continued with him spending time on typing it, and finished with the invaluable act of sharing a piece of his heart with me, just a friend.
He wrote this poem long time ago for one of the most important people in his life….now those words are with me and I’ll treasure them forever. Can you see the gift behind the gift?
Thank you so much Stewart. I must have done something good in life to deserve a friend like you.

The Way of the World

Said the gate to the path:
“Do you go or do you stay?”
And the path replied:
“I think I must pass and move on,
For I am un-used, untrodden and lonely.
Please let me pass”.

Now the gate, though upright, proclaimed with humility:
“I have not the power to restrain you, nor to let you by,
since I face two directions
And thus owe two allegiances”.

So the path asked:
“Can you not use the power of vision that is yours
To tell me about the other side, so that I might find
The way home?”

And now the gate answered:
“On the other side, you will encounter
What you already know; the life you have chosen,
That was chosen for you.
A path is a path. It runs and meanders where it must.
At times, it crosses other paths.
They merge, they part and on they travel,
Searching out their ways.
If there is an end, I know it not,
For I am only a simple gate, a passage for paths,
Without omniscience, or omnipotence”.

And the path, pensive, looked up at the gnarled old gate and,
Feeling humbled, murmured:
“But how do I cross, in order to run and meander
And merge and part?
For am I not a path, as other paths?
Or am I condemned to an eternal waiting at the gate,
Solitary?”

At this, the gate uttered swiftly, though without urgency:
“Hush now. I hear footsteps approaching from yonder.
In the instant of your opportunity,
Will you have the wisdom to make the most
To choose?
Or the folly to miss all there is
By being ensnared in vacillation, lost
In futile questioning?

The life you have is yours alone to live.
To live it, you must
Follow your own path”.

And with that, as the gate was pushed open


(Stewart, to all those in search of certainties.
August 1991)