For today

For all of today here is my favorite poem
found in an old Starr King Catalogue.
It is written by Holly Horn.

To surrender oneself willing to truth,
to earn it,
in every sense, to allow
a voice to the great unbegotten
mystery and, beyond that,
to listen,
is asking for trouble

Don't doubt it. But prepare for the aftershocks.
Store water, and cans of tuna fish.
Plan an escape route, and a rendezvous point.
Write messages with lipstick on the bathroom mirror
reminding yourself...
where the flashlight batteries are stashed, and how to find the pole star.

Keep a list of essentials
posted on the refrigerator: poetry, theology, an aria--
whatever works:
a ticket to Ravenna,
a menu from Provence,
a ballad to be sung at the tomb of Rachel.

And plan to go.