by Mary Oliver

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 the 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,

And the road full of fallen

Branches and stones.

But little by little, as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn 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 that you could save.