All the True Vows

All the true vows are secret vows
the ones we speak out loud
are the ones we break.
There is only one life you can call your own
and a thousand others you can call by any name you want.
Hold to the truth you make every day with your own body, don't turn your face away.
Hold to your own truth at the center of the image you were born with.
Those who do not understand their destiny
will never understand the friends they have made
nor the work they have chosen
nor the one life that waits beyond all the others.
By the lake in the wood in the shadows
you can whisper that truth to the quiet reflection you see in the water.
Whatever you hear from the water, remember,
it wants you to carry the sound of its truth on your lips.
Remember, in this place no one can hear you
and out of the silence you can make a promise it will kill you to break,
that way you'll find what is real and what is not.
I know what I am saying.
Time almost forsook me and I looked again.
Seeing my reflection I broke a promise and spoke for the first time after all these years
in my own voice,
before it was too late to turn my face again.

Poem by David Whyte
Photo by Natasha Lythgoe