Leaving for Orphalese

Lectio Divina poem for this morning: The opening scene in The Prophet, where he is standing looking out to sea and sees his ship coming to take him back to Orphalese, his home town.

We are all, always, leaving for Orphalese,
The remembered country of the heart.
Looking for home in the faces of strangers,
Dreaming of the dark cypresses and the mellow stone.
We stand at the edge of the fathomless sea
And look towards the West,
Dreaming of the impossible islands of legend.
But we must turn our faces to the land
And the people among whom we walk
And love them for who they are,
Cherishing their inmost flame
That burns with the same ardour
For their own personal Orphalese.
Let us not look for Orphalese on some distant shore
But find it here, now, in our own hearts.

Yvonne Aburrow, 9:30, 14-7-12