A Hundred Falling Veils

This is the path of failure. We see that our definition of success is what is not working. What is working is deep, unseen. —Joi Sharp

Even a small discontent is enough to shut us down,

convince us that the world is cold and indifferent.

Everywhere there’s evidence of this: The slush

that falls on your car seat when you open the car door.

The carrion eaters with their great black wings

that linger beside the road. You pray for sun,

and it gets darker. Someone asks

you a question, and you see your whole life

fold into one small envelope of failure.

Then one day you hit against the same

impassable wall you always hit and this time you fall

to your knees, not because you are weak,

but because at last you are ready to be opened.

Oh sweet failure, how it leads us.

Any unhappy ending is only an invitation

to crawl into the blank pages

of the next unwritten chapter.

It was never success that transformed us—

always the breaking. Not the breaking itself,

but the mystery inside pushing through us

like bindweed through pavement

making cracks in everything

we think we know so that the world

can come streaming in.