Now I Become Myself
by May Sarton

[Listen to Audio!]

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before—"
(What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)

Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!

The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand; the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard.

All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, word to silence,
My work, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.

As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted by love.

Now there is time and Time is young.

O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun!

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Now I Become Myself How do you relate to the notion of becoming yourself? Can you share a personal story of a time you felt alive with your song 'made so and rooted by love'? What helps you remember that you have time to live and be still?

Jagdish P Dave wrote: Becoming yourself is a challenge for all of us. Right from our childhood we are asked by others in our families, schools and societies who we should be. Our mind's are conditioned to think, feel a...

Xiaoshan Pan wrote: Humans are easily susceptible to two evils. "Whenever a group of people start believing they are better than everyone else, the results are always the same." This is the first evil, which h...

David Doane wrote: There is nothing more important than becoming yourself. If there is a purpose to be, it is to become yourself, become all you are. For me, the meaning of being alive with my song 'made so and root...

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