The Gifts We Bring To Each Other
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The most powerful poetry states startling truths in sparse and sublime ways. Every once in a while, a poem is the sprinkle of cool water when teachers are in the heat of the day (figuratively and literally). We share the following poem, “Working Together” by David Whyte, as it beautifully captures the gifts we bring to each other as teachers: trusting “those elements we have yet to see or imagine and look for the true shape of our own self.”
“Working Together”
By David Whyte
We shape our self
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again.
The visible
and the invisible
working together
in common cause,
to produce
the miraculous.
I am thinking of the way the
the intangible air
passed at speed
round a shaped wing
easily
holds our weight.
So we may, in this life
trust
to those elements
we have yet to see
or imagine,
and look for the true
shape of our own self,
by forming it well
to the great
intangibles around us.