Ben Saunders - Polar Explorer, Motivational Speaker

Inspiration for the Week

T.S. Eliot's Geneen Marie Haugen's (whoops) The Return (thank you Jerry) and a sublime advertisement from Mercedes…

Some day, if you are lucky,
you'll return from a thunderous journey trailing snake scales, wing fragments and the musk of Earth and moon.
Eyes will examine you for signs of damage, or change and you, too, will wonder if your skin shows traces
of fur, or leaves, if thrushes have built a nest of your hair, if Andromeda burns from your eyes.

Do not be surprised by prickly questions from those who barely inhabit
their own fleeting lives, who barely taste their own possibility, who barely dream.
If your hands are empty, treasureless, if your toes have not grown claws, if your obedient voice has not
become a wild cry, a howl,
you will reassure them.

We warned you, they might declare, there is nothing else, no point, no meaning, no mystery at all, just this frantic waiting to die.
And yet, they tremble, mute, afraid you've returned without sweet elixir for unspeakable thirst, without a fluent dance or holy language
to teach them, without a compass bearing to a forgotten border where no one crosses without weeping for the terrible beauty of galaxies
and granite and bone.

They tremble, hoping your lips hold a secret, that the song your body now sings will redeem them, yet they fear
your secret is dangerous, shattering, and once it flies from your astonished mouth, they—like you—must disintegrate before unfolding tremulous wings.

{ Filed under Inspiration and motivation on Monday, August 11th, 2008. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site. }