A Prayer For Understanding— At West End Gallery
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
—Prayer, Galway Kinnell (1927-2014)
This is the third time I have featured verses from Galway Kinnell in the last week or so. I wasn’t planning on doing it that way. These three poems just seemed to fall into line with my thinking at the moment. I will most likely never share another of his poems and will struggle to remember who he is if I stumble across his name in the future. Well, maybe not — his name has a memorable quality.
As to this short poem of his, after stumbling over the triple use of is in the second line, my first thought was that it might be referring to the inevitability of all things.
Or maybe the acceptance of whatever happens.
I struggled with that interpretation. I understood it and might well be okay with it under different circumstances. But at this point in time, with what is taking place in this country, the idea of simply accepting whatever happens without question was not appetizing to me.
Of course, after reading it a few times– after getting the rhythm right for the what is is is— I understood that it was not about passive acceptance of whatever life hands you.
It is, to my understanding, at least, about wanting to know life completely, to not be deprived of any experience that marks us as human. No more, no less.
To love and be loved.
To know joy and happiness yet not be deprived of the sorrow, loss, and grief allotted to each of us.
To be both the humble giver and the appreciative receiver of kindnesses and generosities.
To understand that we possess both knowledge and ignorance.
To feel big at times and small at others.
To know both the absolute certainty and uncertainty contained in belief.
To have felt secure and insecure.
To have acted with both courage and cowardice.
To feel both the short-lived elative moments of victory and the lingering, harsh pang of failure.
To care for someone other than yourself and be cared for as yourself.
To know that when you leave this world you do so with the knowledge that you have been exposed to all that is human. Nothing has been kept from you, good or bad. And though you may not want to leave, you do so gladly with that knowledge in hand.
I believe that is what the what is is. I know that this is the what is that I want.
No more, no less.
Only that. But that.
Okay, let’s hear some music, shall we. This week’s Sunday Morning Music is Shine a Light from the Rolling Stones, off their 1972 album Exile on Main Street. I think today’s triad of verse, image, and song work well together.
They create a nice what is…
Redtree Times 
I read that passage as a perfect expression of my own preference: for reality, in its wholeness. William Blake’s “joy and woe are woven fine, ” etc. — similar to what you expressed. So much of what’s offered to us today is artificial, from photos to policy; I have no patience for it.
As for songs, while I was reading that passage, a different song came to mind. My mother used to sing it to me when I was a child: a song of willing acceptance of whatever life brings, rather than passive endurance of its complexities.