BK Authors' Retreat 2010

Berrett-Koehler Author Cooperative
Retreat: October 7-10, 2010

COLLECTIVE POEM

We’re running short on time
but don’t knock yourself out:
We want to reach as many
People as possible
Skyrocket sales
Create a twenty-year book
from a launch party
that lets 1,000 flowers bloom.

Walking 2.5 miles of an
interpretive nature trail
I wonder how to interpret
my life.
Am I wayfarer or tourist?

I keep hearing that there is
so much to cover,
But did I not also hear
that the trail is a circle.
And in a circle, we will
come to the same place –
again and again.

Kabir said as much
But I felt the invitation
and the challenge.
When my time ends, will the
world cry or rejoice?

Two streams parallel the trail I’m on.
One flows from the past with all
its inconsistencies and shadow. The
other runs into the distance obscured
by the brush.

Are there not also two parallel lives
we live, the one on the inside and
the one we show to the world?

I know I need to tweet and blog
and have a services page,
but I have been instructed by
higher counselors to consider what
I need to receive, to ponder
what of value I resist.

There are those who bound over
rails, unencumbered by the
group… but we’re running short
of time and it is by holding
hands and moving accordion-like
that we will reach the
farther shore.

I was asked if
I was coming or going
and said Yes!

Alan Briskin