Start Close In - Ash Wednesday

START CLOSE IN

by David White from River Flow:  New and Selected Poems, 1984-2007 (Many Rivers Press)

Start close in,

don't take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step you don't want to take.

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet,

your own

way of starting

the conversation.

Start with your own

question,

give up on other

people's questions,

don't let them

smother something

simple.

To find

another's voice

follow

your own voice,

wait until

that voice

becomes a

private ear

listening

to another.

Start right now

take a small step

you can call your own

don't follow

someone else's

heroics, be humble

and focused,

start close in,

don't mistake

that other

for your own.

Start close in,

don't take the second step

or the third,

start with the first

thing

close in,

the step you don't want to take.

Usually I begin the Lenten poetry collections with an often amusing yet thought provoking poem about mortality.  For many churches, the words imparted with the imposition of ashes are a memento mori-- remember from dust you came and to dust you shall return.  In recent years, some communities have begun marking Lent as the beginning of a journey of conversion and thus the ashes become the mark of a pilgrim taking the first step on a long road. 

I realize I often begin Lent more like I've been dropped from a plane into the middle of the desert where I spend forty odd days wandering around until I'm thrown the life-line of Easter that allows me to repel out.  There's no easing into the journey.  Ash Wednesday arrives and I'm pushed out of the aircraft whether or not my parachute is ready.  Rather than feeling like I've suddenly landed in the wilderness, this year I intend to take my time, walk in slowly.  As David Whyte says, start in close, take the first step. 

The questions he raises in this poem (as in all of his poems) are good ones to consider for the beginning of this season:

     What is the ground you know?
     What is your question?
     Where is your own voice leading you?

And finally . . .

     What is the first step for you, the step you don't want to take?