One String

This fall, Sounds True is publishing a box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in my book Reduced to Joy. The poems are the teachers and unfold the journey from our head to our heart. For the next two months, I'm happy to be previewing poems and reflections from the box set.

For all the ways we run and work, the secret waits hiding in the open under all our busyness.

One String

I am so busy at times
trying to make it all
worthwhile, that I am
stunned at how easily the
whole of life speaks to me,
when music I've never heard
or a truth I never understood
plucks the one string I carry
deep within.

I only want that string pluck-
ed and yet, it stays in a place
only suffering or surrender
can open.

Still, violins in minor keys
make me swallow my fear
and herons flying into
the end of a long day
make me wish I'd led
a more peaceful life.

A Question to Walk With: What does it feel like when the one string you carry deep within is plucked and what opens you to the deeper music of life?

For more poetry for the soul, click here.

For more by Mark Nepo, click here.