Everything Falls Away

 Sooner or later, everything falls away.

You, the work you’ve done, your successes,

large and small, your failures, too. Those

moments when you were light, alongside

the times you became one with the night.

The friends, the people you loved

who loved you, those who might have wished

you ill, none of this is forever. All of it is

soon to go, or going, or long gone.

 Everything falls away, except the thread

you’ve followed, unknowing, all along.

The thread that strings together all you’ve

been and done, the thread you didn’t know

you were tracking until, toward the end,

you see that the thread is what stays

as everything else falls away.

 Follow that thread as far as you can and

you’ll find that it does not end, but weaves

into the unimaginable vastness of life. Your

life never was the solo turn it seemed to be.

It was always part of the great weave of

nature and humanity, an immensity we

come to know only as we follow our own

small threads to the place where they

merge with the boundless whole.

 Each of our threads runs its course, then

joins in life together. This magnificent tapestry –

this masterpiece in which we live forever.

                                   Parker J. Palmer