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For anyone out there who has read "The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer....I've penned an extra verse which I thought was the only element she neglected when writing the original. As I get older, and hopefully a whole lot wiser, I'm pretty sure I'll think of others too. Anyone got any to add???

It doesn't interest me
what you have achieved in this life -
What letters you have after your name
or how necessary you feel you are in job.

I want to know
if you can live with ordinariness at times.
When the intense fire of romance has dwindled to glowing embers,
or the razzamatazz of the fast lane
has left you on the side of the road
with two flat tyres :
Can you sit quietly in that place and soak it up?

Can you appreciate the ordinary times as well as the excellent?

Have you yet learned that all life ebbs and flows,
and you WILL move on again?

Have you learned patience?[/i]

I like the original,your addition seems apt.
Can you go to the brink,stare death down barely blinking
Gather yourself and return to the fray.

regards

Luke,
thanks for the comments. I think your verse very clearly portrays how some people have done it. Yourself perhaps? I too have been there but in retrospect not sure how close to the edge i've stepped. At the time I thought I was on the brink but now I think I could perhaps have gotten a little closer and still, unblinkingly, returned. The very difficult part of course is the "gathering of yourself". Very well expressed.
Cheers,
Marilyn

I love the original, and like very much both of your additions, Marilyn and Luke. I regret that I'm not adding anything, but appreciate what you two have accomplished with it.

~ Lizzy

Ta, Lizzytish.
Cheers, Marilyn