01/20/2025
The First Promise
Sometimes you need to hide
from everything you’ve
promised to become,
so you can find the first promise:
the one you and the soft world
sang to each other
down beneath the tall bushes
along the old stream bed,
back when nobody knew
exactly where you were,
before the person
everyone needed you to be
learned to find you even there.
That place is just a memory now
but the sanctuary still waits—
in the quiet places under trees,
the spacious darkness
of a solitary night—
and if you learn again
how to hide, even from
the expectations you’ve
mistaken for your own,
you’ll find the world still knows
your secret harmony,
and some brave and
brokenhearted voice in you
never stopped singing.
~James Pearson
From: The Wilderness That Bears Your Name
Art: Andrea Jacobi
