Sharing the Grail

 When we arrive, and sooner

than we think, at that final goodbye

we seem to have anticipated so clearly.

When we arrive at the place

we have understood until now,

only through distance.

When we sit at the bedside

of the loved one as if sitting

by a well where we drink

from the source of all memory;

when we sip together from the grail

of that common memory

and we taste an essence

of love from that memory

that until now we could never fully say,

we are getting ready to be ready

to give the goodbye

we came all along to give.

And if our faith

and the vulnerability

of that faith,

and the wounded

nature of that faith

is felt finally and fully

at the side of that well,

we find ourselves

speaking completely and utterly

the love that we thought had

turned only to memory.

So that after the words

of goodbye are said

everything around us

in the quiet room

and everything spreading

out from the room

becomes like the well itself,

holding the same sacred water,

which is never just still water,

but a hidden flow always arriving,

a never-ending invitation

to drink from the depths,

and perhaps, most of all,

an invitation to somehow rest

in those depths: to rest in that love

that you spoke and they heard,

to wave confusion goodbye,

as you enter

the hallway of presence,

to accompany them

as you always

wanted to accompany them,

and then, to bring everyone

they loved with you,

those you have loved too

and even, those you tried to

and could not,

and then, to make room

inside you, for every single guest.

And above all to be generous now,

as you pass around the grail

of water, saying,

‘This will do.

For now and for eternity.’

David Whyte

in, Still Possible