Sometimes the Way to the Sky Is Down
A few weeks ago, I was staying at an Airbnb in Moab while visiting Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. One night, I stepped outside onto the patio and noticed a little bird who couldn't seem to find its way out from beneath the covered roof.
What happened over the next little while stayed with me. I found myself thinking about this little bird long after it had flown away... and, inevitably, thinking about my own life, too.
Somewhere along the way, those thoughts started turning into a poem... So I thought I'd share it with you.
Sometimes the Way to the Sky Is Down
Listen to me read this poem ↓
Or keep scrolling to read it below ↓
It was 9pm at night, and below the patio roof,
I saw something small and dark fluttering about in flight.
Dusk lovers that they are, I thought at first it was a bat
Until I saw a little bird… and knew that something wasn't right.
The little bird kept flying up into the beams above,
Its little body hitting them again and again… it hurt me to watch it try,
While the sides of the patio stood completely open,
And just beyond them, was the open night sky.
I stood there watching, thinking, No, no, not that way little bird
Please stop — there’s something right beside you that you can’t see
If you'd just go down a little lower...
the opening is right there, and you… you could be free.
Of course the little bird couldn't understand me.
And I moved and shifted to see if I could help it find its way through.
But nothing helped. And as I watched the little bird struggle, my heart breaking,
I began to wonder… how often do I do this too?
The little bird's instinct made perfect sense,
Flying up toward the open sky was all that it knew.
But here, beneath this roof, what once worked wasn’t helping.
Because this time, up was not the way through.
Oh little bird, I thought, I can so relate to you…
When I don’t know the way forward, I try harder. Push harder. Do more.
I think Up, up, up, keep going, keep trying…
using the strategies I’ve been taught or the ones that worked once before.
I could see the bird, the roof, the open patio sides,
I could see exactly how it could get from here to there.
But this precious little bird could only see the world from where it was,
And from where it was, the path to freedom was anything but clear.
And I thought about the times I couldn't see my own way forward,
When, just like this bird… I looked and couldn’t see an opening anywhere…
And I wondered what I too might not be able to see from where I'm standing,
And whether not being able to see an opening isn't always the same as one not being there.
Maybe the opening is already there, or maybe something still has to change,
A conversation, a person, a part of myself I don't yet know.
Maybe there's a change I'm not ready to make, or something that hasn't happened yet,
Or a door that hasn't opened to somewhere I don't yet know I can go.
Or maybe nothing outside of us needs to change at all,
Maybe there's just an angle we haven't yet been able to see.
Maybe, like for my bird friend, the opening has been there all along,
And I just can’t see from here what that opening might be.
Eventually I went back inside and turned off the patio light,
Wondering if maybe my presence was making it harder for the bird to find its way.
I gave my little bird friend some space, hoping without me there it might settle,
And came back twenty minutes later to see if it had flown away.
But nope. Twenty minutes later, the little bird was still there.
Still beneath the roof and still flying the same old route.
My heart sank, and for the first time I found myself wondering
if this little bird who’d claimed a place in my heart was ever going to find its way out.
I shut the door behind me, and in that moment something in the little bird shifted,
Whether I startled it or something else changed, I'll never really know.
But this time, instead of throwing itself toward the wooden beams above,
the little bird finally flew low.
It flew beneath the beams, toward the opening that had been there all along,
Lower than where it had spent all that time trying so desperately to fly high.
My heart was full as it passed beyond the edge of the patio,
found its freedom, and disappeared into the open night sky.
I was so happy and relieved to see just how quickly everything had changed,
How different things looked from what, just minutes before, I feared they might be.
After all that struggling, all those attempts to find a way out,
One moment my little bird was stuck… and the next, it was free.
And here's the part I can't stop thinking about:
This little bird wanted the sky, but flying up wasn't what it needed to do.
To finally reach its freedom, it first had to fly down.
And I wondered how often I resist going down when that’s what I need too.
Somewhere along the way I learned to think of progress as more, forward, faster, better… UP.
So maybe down is slowing down, resting, admitting that I just don't know.
Maybe it's changing my mind, asking for help, saying no, beginning again, stepping sideways,
When everything I've learned about progress tells me that up is where I should go.
My little bird certainly hadn't lacked effort.
It couldn't have tried much more.
And it turns out it didn't need to analyze all of its failed attempts or figure anything out.
It just needed to move differently than it had before.
And so, maybe there are things I just can't know from the position I'm in…
things that won't become clear until I take a different step, rest, have the conversation, visit the place, say yes, say no — or move somewhere I didn't know to go.
Maybe I don't always get to see the opening before I move,
Maybe sometimes I have to move before I can know.
I still don't know what finally changed for my little bird,
And there's a part of me that would really love to understand why.
I’m not sure if it was the rest, the closing door, or being startled into something new.
But all I really know is that somehow, eventually, it found its way back to the sky.
In the moments I don’t know where my opening in life is, I'll remember you, little bird,
And how all that trying harder in the same direction wasn't what finally got you free.
Maybe moving down isn't always moving backward, and trying harder isn't always moving forward,
And maybe there are openings from where I'm standing that I simply can't yet see.
I watched you disappear into the night, little bird,
And I couldn’t help but smile about how differently freedom can sometimes be found.
You spent all that time trying so hard to reach the sky by flying up…
When sometimes, apparently, the way to the sky is down.
And I've been wondering ever since about the places in my own life
where I keep flying up because I'm convinced that's what I need to do.
I wonder where I might still be flying toward the same old roof…
And where might you, dear listener, still be flying in the same old direction too?
And so whenever you find yourself beneath a roof you can't quite see beyond,
I hope you know when to keep trying the same thing… and when to give something different a try.
I hope you give yourself permission to rest, to stumble, to not know, to fly low
And I hope you, like my little bird friend, keep finding your way back to the sky.
With love,