Doing Is Being
by Ray Bradbury
Feast of St Bogolep, Disciple of St Paisius of Uglich
Anno Domini 2020, August 22
Doing is being.
To have done’s not enough;
To stuff yourself with doing—that’s the game.
To name yourself each hour by what’s done,
To tabulate your time at sunset’s gun
And find yourself in acts
You could not know before the facts
You wooed from secret self, which much needs wooing,
So doing brings it out,
Kills doubt by simply jumping, rushing, running
Forth to be
the now-discovered me.
To not do is to die,
Or lie about and lie about the things
You just might do some day.
Away with that!
Tomorrow empty stays
If no man plays it into being
With his motioned way of seeing.
Let your body lead your mind—
Blood the guide dog to the blind;
So then practice and rehearse
To find heart-soul’s universe,
Knowing that by moving/seeing
Proves for all time: Doing’s being!
*From They Have Not Seen the Stars: The Collected Poetry of Ray Bradbury
(Lancaster, PA: Stealth Press, 2002), 293-294.
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