But isn’t transformation, the spirit’s education, most often effected by what is out of our hands, the sweeping forces – time, love, mortality – which shape us? The deepening of the heart, the work of soul-making goes on, I think, as the world hammers us, as we forge ourselves in response to its heats and powers The whirlwind pours over and through us, above and beyond human purpose; death’s deep in the structure of things, and we didn’t put it there.
– Mark Doty, Heaven’s Coast
So much truth to evaluate in a relatively short verse. As I am dancing through the early stages of my eighth decade, I find the last line ever more present.
As so often happens, we have the same books on our nightstands. , too, I have fallen in love with Mark Doty’s writing. This passage says it all, so very beautifully.