Labyrinth – a poem by Lory Widmer Hess

Labyrinth

I look into the world: 
so many paths
bewilder me with multiplicity.
Which do I choose?
Where do I start?
What way will I go?
How will it end?

Then I see
there is only one path,
the one named
Who am I beyond appearances?
I pick up this thread
and walk.

Back and forth
around and about
distant and close
backtracking, backsliding
foregoing, forgetting
but following, following
till I come to the center,
the heart.

My heart
your heart
our heart
the heart of hearts
still center of silence
pulsing with faith.

There the thread of love
leads me outward again
to rejoin myself
to collect, to connect
the fragments broken
through heartlessness.

So hope is born
in the restful place
where nothing moves
except
everything.

Lory Widmer Hess is an American currently living with her family in Switzerland. She works with adults with developmental disabilities and is in training as spiritual director. Her writing has been published in Parabola, Heart of Flesh, Solum Journal, Ekstasis, Time of Singing, and other print and online publications. She blogs at enterenchanted.com.