For the Winter Solstice, Stillness and a Great Shout of Joy

Inside everyone
is a great shout of joy
waiting to be born. 

Even with the summer
so far off
I feel it grown in me
now and ready
to arrive in the world. 

All those years
listening to those
who had
nothing to say. 

All those years
forgetting
how everything
has its own voice
to make
itself heard. 

All those years
forgetting
how easily
you can belong
to everything
simply by listening.

And the slow 
difficulty 
of remembering 
how everything 
is born from 
an opposite 
and miraculous 
otherness. 

Silence and winter 
have led me to that 
otherness. 
So let this winter 
of listening 
be enough 
for the new life 

I must call my own. 

~David Whyte, from "The Winter of Listening"