"Lost"

"Lost"
by David Wagoner

This is the poem Oprah read during the Chapter 5 webcast. David Wagoner is an award-winning poet and novelist.

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,I have made this place around you.If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened sooner. Later.
Nearer. Farther.
It happened not to you.

You survived because you were the first.
You survived because you were the last.
Because you were alone. Because of the people.
Because you turned left. Because you turned right.
Because the rain fell. Because a shadow fell.
Because sunny weather prevailed.

Luckily there was a wood.
Luckily there were no trees.
Luckily there was a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake,
a frame, a bend, a millimeter, a second.
Luckily a straw was floating on the surface.

Thanks to, because, and yet, in spite of.
What would have happened had not a hand, a foot, by a step, a hairsbreadth
by sheer coincidence.

So you're here? Straight from a moment still ajar?
The net had one eye hole, and you got through it?
There's no end to my wonder, my silence.
Listen
how fast your heart beats in me.

-Wislawa Szymborska