One day you finally knew what you had to do and began,
Though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,
Though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt that old tug at your ankles.
“Mend my life!” each voice cried,
but you didn’t stop, you knew what you had to do,
Though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,
Though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough and a wild night,
the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to bum through the sheets of clouds
And there was a new voice
which you slowly recognized as your own,
That kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
Determined to do the only thing you could do,
determined to save the only life you could save.
Many Oliver, ‘from ‘New and Selected Poems’
