sometimes

sometimes

if you move carefully through the forest

breathing

like the ones in the old stories

who could cross a shimmering bed of dry leaves without a sound,

you come to a place whose only task

is to trouble you with tiny but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere

but in this place

beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what you are doing right now,

and

to stop what you are becoming while you do it,

questions that can make or unmake a life,

questions that have patiently waited for you,

questions that have no right to go away.

-david whyte