Foolishly,
I thought the wound
Had healed
Scar tissue now
Where once, raw flesh,
Bled.
Foolishly,
I thought the memory,
Lost, buried,
An autumnal leaf,
All power decayed,
Was gone.
How can it be, that
A line of poetry,
A word even,
Can revive the pain,
Twist again the
Long forgotten knife,
That once,
Plunged so deep?
And still does.
A houseplant and I
Share the same space,
The only two living
Beings in the room
And I wonder,
Does it know
Who provides it
With water
And without whom
It would die?
Then I reflect
Do I?
In meditation
You are advised to
Sit and watch the clouds
Pass across the sky
That is your mind
So who is it that hurls
Unwanted thoughts and
Half forgotten memories
To obscure
The blue sky of my mind?
I sit and watch
The clouds roll by
And cannot help but wonder
If not me,
Who then?
There is a beauty in silence,
A sacred balm that heals,
Calming the mind,
Soothing away,
The cares of the day.
Silence offers a pause
In the noise and bustle
Of the world, the opportunity
To put down your burden,
And simply be – at peace.
Thoughts arise
Jostling one another
Like beads on a necklace
But
If you can find the space
Between the thoughts
And see the string that
Holds the beads together
You have found who you are.
On the road to understanding
there is a tollgate that bars some travellers.
Reason is forbidden and also it’s cousin
rationalisation, as is explanation.
Science bans itself, cast out
into a rational wilderness of its own making
unable to escape its mechanistic view
of a universe beyond its understanding.
So who travel the road beyond the toll gate?
Poets. Painters. Lovers. Artists. The people
who make others uncomfortable.
The odd people who don’t quite fit in.
And of course, all of those who have experienced
a Love and Bliss beyond comprehension,
who have come to know
the name of the Divine.
The bookshelves of my mind
must be tumbled and jumbled
unsteady and cluttered, in urgent need
of repair and refiling or shredding.
How do I know this?
Because on the floor of my mind I constantly
find stray memories that have slipped, though
from which volume I know not.
Some are familiar, picked up and put back
innumerable times, but somehow always finding
their way back out, to flutter unbidden into
my consciousness. Usually embarrassing and
from decades ago. Mixed in amongst, sadness,
friends and family, gone, vanished, but not forgotten.
How rare the happy memories that arise spontaneously.
My antidote to this is simply to count my blessings.
I am what I am, and I am loved. I breathe in the scent of flowers
and feel the wind on my face. And above all of this,
I simply smile and record with joy all the good things
in my life and this world.
And they are many.
The locking nut that should have been tightened wasn’t.
But it passed the inspection and that’s all that matters.
The weather decides. Or does it? Perhaps sun and moon
Conspire together and the outcome of the marriage is
Wind and rain. Or frost and snow. Unruly children.
That together cause the leaves to fall.
This one before that one. But why?
God-like the tree that gives them life withdraws it too, job done.
They fall earthward, caught by wind and rain and careless feet
To land and stay and rot, to turn to mulch, next years food.
The driver was late. The delivery slot was now. So he went
Faster than he should have. Down the road made slippy by wind
Rain and fallen leaves. In his lorry with the loose locking nut.
What takes you out of the house? A decision? Or habit perhaps?
Shopping to collect. Job to go to? The need for fresh air?
Or is it fate. That puts you in the same place and time as your nemesis
Take care. Leaves underfoot can be slippy. Oops, What did I say!
In the wrong place at the wrong time was the verdict.
Many years ago, on a visit to London, I was at a tea party when an elderly English gentleman told me how much he admired the way I was prepared to say “I Don’t Know”. It’s important to be honest and truthful.
Quote from the Dali Lama in conversation with Gaur Gopal Das, 14/07/20
Sometimes a black bin bag filled with rubbish.
Occasionally – rarely – a cathedral filled with God.
More often a busy highway filled with ceaseless traffic.
From time to time, a beehive filled with buzzing busy thoughts
That fill it with movement and noise, but with little substance.
A bus stop, waiting, waiting for just the right word
That will take me to my destination.
An overstocked library with ancient tomes spilling out
Of dusty shelves, much forgotten, so little retained.
A haunted house, filled with ghosts from the past.
A deep bottomless pit down which all is drawn.
A black hole from which no thought can escape.
A house of illusion.
A theatre of the absurd.
A comedy theatre, where the most ridiculous plays are performed on stage daily.
When you draw near, a garden of love, fragrance filled
Glowing with colour and shape.
A garden of peace, God filled,
Full of fragrant blossoms and soothing colour.
A place of dreams.
But above all else, a place I know well, for this is where I dwell,
This is my home, my space, where only some may enter,
A space where I can bar the door and shutter the windows
Turn out the lights and escape into blessed sleep
Reflections on life in Poetry and Prose. 