Late Fragment (Thx Raymond Carver)

This morning I read a poem with a friend. It’s from Raymond Carver, an American Poet that lived in the Western United States in the 1900s. And from this book, Poetry of Presence in which I have many marked pages.

Late Fragment
Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

I am living a phase of life, personally and in my work, in which I find myself drawn to the most simple of narratives. It often translates in my head and heart and belly this way (from this poem) — “If all you did was cultivate beloved in self, with others, and with earth, you would have done something quite significant and quite lovely.”

I remain a person that so loves the invitation under the invitation, particularly in groups, to explore what a “little more beloved might look like here.” What a thing to invite returning to such values together, in the context of the things that we most care about in work and community settings. What a thing to invite follow and contribute to what is compelling.

With gratitude.