The pencil, it turns out,
has never contained lead.
It’s always been graphite—
a form of solid carbon.
How much of what we think
we know is just a mistaken story
passed on for centuries?
And the human body, it turns out,
contains enough carbon
for 9,000 pencils—
that is a fact of the world,
a fact like the distance
from earth to the moon,
a fact like 99 percent of all human DNA
is the same. I’d like to think I will use up
my pencils, one every three days,
writing the story of what it is
to be alive here, to fall in love,
to disagree, to fail, to try again.
I want to write of healing,
write of the autumn air,
how it touches everything
with its cool transparency.
Write of how we are here
to revel in beauty, to find ourselves
in each other, to serve a story greater
than the one we know how to write,
serve the story that even now
is writing us.
Love this one!!
This…
“How much of what we think
we know is just a mistaken story
passed on for centuries?”
What an exquisite, excruciating, and ultimately liberating truth!!!! Namo (I bow)
I used this poem as my theme in class yesterday! I love when I open my email early in the morning and find you have dropped a nugget for my class right there in my inbox!!
It matters, you know! I matters, you do know that, right?
I think this poem might have saved someone’s life yesterday! I’m not being overly-dramatic either. It was just what someone needed in order to see that how she BELIEVED things to be, did not have to BE how things really are. I think she’s going to write a story that serves everyone better going forward.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, your poems, YOU!!
Love and Namaste my friend!
what amazing feedback. Thank you for telling me how it matters. sending big love to you and to your student … to the amazing stories being written through you.
xo
r