Consciousness

I was not happy when I was picking potatoes it was autumn it was cold it was raining my wellingtons were covered in mud my hands were covered in mud and when I washed my hands under the hot tap my fingers suffered from hot-aches

All of these recollected feelings as well as some that I have doubtless forgotten conspire to convince me that I was not happy when I was picking potatoes

I was happy laying out on the grass it was spring it was dry it was warm there was sunshine and the nearness of the sea I was wearing one of my favourite shirts a soft fabric with quite wide stripes of green and silver

I have a photograph somewhere of this occasion and thanks to the feelings which I can remember and those that have slipped my mind or for some unknown reason I have excluded combine to convince me that yes I was happy laying out on the grass

Somewhere sometime between the being happy and the being unhappy I have sought out the joy and the solace of pen and paper I am reminded to do so again now as I watch Carl Jung's The World Within In His Own Words

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Meditations

Already the download is begun
Instructions on being comfortable and settled
Outside the sky is blue the birds sing
Yesterday there was work in the garden

A space to sit a place to contemplate
A privacy to look out on the wonderment
To view the ordinary and the extra-ordinary
Accomplishments of mankind and nature

I will need to find a chair or chairs
Perhaps a writing table with a bowl of pebbles
I have identified two or three trees
Which I feel might enhance the situation

Right now I am so happy not to be working
Although I have ironed some trousers
And cooked breakfast and posted poetry
On my websites I have shared my self

And now I am preparing for Thursday's
Meditation sampler in The Old Stables
I would like to include Sharon Salzberg's
Tea Meditation though we have no tea set

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Emancipated

The good weather is good
Low pressure thousands of miles away
Brings an absolute calm
Even the birdsong carries reverence

The blossom is full right now
Days ahead of silent nervous waiting
For the winds to pick up
For the rainstorms to come hither flourishing

Pinks and crimsons and greens
Of lime and grass and silk-satin cushions
I am in no rush to get there
To the withering to the certain decay

I have a locket with a picture of the day
That first day when we cut back on food
Not then out of financial necessity
That though as a matter of course came later

Accompanying the substantial withdrawal
Marshalled by the silence and the shadows
Governed by the longtime mute ex-mistress
Who now you see barely clings on

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Warm Air

From the washing machine to the Brabantia
Washed and spun blue jeans
Solid years of solid substantia

Abstinence keeps the hangover at bay
Yet not a day goes by
The drift the mirage the ghost of abstentia

The blossom bouncing the birds chirping
The writer at his ease at his writing
He collects the dust he throws the confetti

And the blackbird runs do blackbirds run
This blackbird runs across the cedar shingle tiles
Runs right up to the edge right up to the very ledge

And he can't help but thinking
Is she wasting away will she soon
Be no more than the bones of a lived life

And he can't help himself but to write about
The doubt the depth the chill the fret
The sweat beads of improbable deferentia

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Nettle

Nettle patch a fractious square
Of not to fall of not a good place to roll
Lift the latch the iron catch of the back door
Step out skip off the stone floor imprisoned no more

Run across the yard sprint across the yard
Instinctively open the five-bar gate wait
Look across at the hens and the sycamore tree
Turn and trip slip into the edge of the field

Yield yourself to the sting bring tears to your eyes
Despise that odd-shaped misplaced stone go home
To the dock-leaf cure be sure to rub long and hard
Cards on the table you had been a naughty boy

The joy of the morning all taken the early awakening
No longer now special the feral life
Is not for everyone the love is going the love
Is gone shone out onto someone other

An older or a younger brother or your mother
Or a lover such things as you did not yet know about
The shout to stop you screaming the dream
That life could ever be so innocent

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