GOING BACK…

[David Filippone]

Photo: ‘Going Back’ by cocoparisienne – Pixabay,  https://tinyurl.com/y6v4kl4d

GOING BACK…

This is an interesting poem, in the sense that it can be read in various ways. For instance, at a normal discursive level, which is a kind of linear reading. It can also be read through the benefit of the TSK vision:

No Going Back
by Wendell Berry

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over a grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.

One of many possible readings… As we get older, we may tend to hold on less to a ‘myopic self-interest’, and become less focused on striving to accumulate and consolidate, the way we may have in our past. Gradually over time we may relax into a more generous way of being, not only with those we interact, but also in the way we engage with each moment… there’s less rushing, and more space available to embody and abide in the present… aware that everything passes, along with the wispy-wish to remain.

Another  way of reading the poem… By engaging the TSK vision, one might invite open inquiry, such as: Who goes back? Where is back? If you “give your-self away,“ then there’s only Now, where ‘who‘ and ‘back‘ arise together. Then, ‘who‘ is not relied upon, and ‘back‘ isn’t other than Now.  Now allows for both ‘who‘ and ‘back‘ simultaneously.

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