Cori

Cleave

by David Whyte

To hold together and to split apart

at one and the same time,

like the shock of being born,

breathing in this world

while lamenting for the one we’ve left. 

No one needs to tell us

we are already on our onward way,

no one has to remind us

of our everyday and intimate

embrace

with disappearance. 

We were born saying goodbye

to what we love,

we were born

in a beautiful reluctance

to be here,

not quite ready 

to breathe in this new world,

we are here and we are almost not,

we are present while still not

wanting to admit we have arrived. 

Not quite arrived in our minds

yet always arriving in the body,

always growing older

while trying to grow younger,

always in the act

of catching up,

of saying hello

or saying goodbye

finding strangely

in each new and imagined future

the still-lived memory

of our previous life.

Anyone in my family who read;

...like the shock of being born,
breathing in this world
while lamenting for the one we’ve left...

and

...We were born saying goodbye
to what we love,
we were born
in a beautiful reluctance
to be here,

not quite ready
to breathe in this new world,...

would know why I named this entry "Cori." It is a well-known family story that Cori screamed when she was born (and any time she cried thereafter, for about 4 months). The nurses in the delivery room had to yell to each other as they weighed her. I always said Cori did not like being taken from that warm womb, and she let us all know.