Description

Should I begin with the roof-light
Or the wood-burner
Stood on a slab of Derbyshire stone
Itself supported by small pyramids of wood
Which no doubt Keith made himself
Or maybe the roof-beams
With their bright and rusted fixing bolts
Or the small patch of raw stone
Left without plaster for visual effect
Actually I do need to tell you
That the room has seven walls
Some long some short especially
Those around one of the three doorways
The largest of which is a double
In the style of French Windows
Which look out onto the large garden
Where the leaves waver in the breeze
O and by the way
The ceiling has five surfaces
Two flat three sloping above which
There is only sky
Sky from which the light falls
Sky from which the rain falls
Sky on which I can contemplate
As I look out through the roof-light

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Thought

I thought to go to a quieter place

Gibraltar Point or Theddlethorpe

I have been before to quiet places

Slapton Sands or on top of Dartmoor

I thought that to travel there often

Would be an expense of time of money

Yet I have often travelled for peace

Beggared the expense

Spent all that I had

Instead I thought to stay nearer to home

To create my own quiet space

To sit in my own rooms

To walk through my own gardens

Then I thought what do I own

What might I lay my hands upon

And say yes yes this is mine

It is the one thing which I do own

Or the one thing which I thought I owned

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Temple

If I found myself on the mountain
If I found myself inside or outside the temple
Would I be any closer to the soul of my self
Than I am in these fifteen minutes
Of sound supported meditation

If I listened to the high altitude winds
If I gazed out over the slowly rolling mists
Would I be any nearer to my own self-discovery
Than I am with the free-flowing thoughts
Of my early morning sitting

If I ventured once again to the abbey
If I entered into those foreboding religious quarters
Would I challenge myself any more
Than I do in the peacefulness
Of this room in my home

If I remained then and did not leave
If I opted instead for renegotiation
Would I stumble upon a more settled solution
Than I do on my own
Within my own self

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Many Things

There are so many things happening
Yet so little going on
There are so many tides turning
Yet so little sunshine splashes on the shore

There is so much to think about
Yet so little to influence
There is so much to confuse you
Yet even more to try to straighten you out

There are going to be changes
Weren't there always going to be changes
There are going to be things that stay the same
Weren't there always things which remained the same

There will be more understanding
And there will also be less understanding
There will no doubt be more confusion
There will hopefully be less delusion

There will be calming meditative music
There will also be lively energising music
There will be peace and love
There will also be anguish and love

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Motel

I tried to give it soul I asked if you recalled our previous visit calling in briefly for a family celebration I told myself and told myself again be alive here be alive and be here be here in the moment I felt the dim light the emptiness the long stretch of the windowless corridor with key-locked bedrooms to either side I imagined myself in an American movie where solitude and autobiography each play their own chilling part

It is more an isolator for you than the cleansing of the monastery there's less life here than in the five o'clock awakenings for Matins her for whom the bell tolls the bell tolls I hear myself ring those words around my eardrums there could be meditation also I have the diabetes tablets at hand indeed it feels as if I have a full life ahead of me at which point I take a break say to myself in an hour or so I must be leaving time does move on

I read Edward Abbey's words of gopher snakes dancing serenading making love making eye contact I don't match him as a writer or even as a person I moan about a centrally heated hotel with cooked breakfast while he lived in the wilderness crawling on his belly to witness what he later might write about what he saw what he felt he was from the Thoreau tradition a man of doing and a man of detail I I make another coffee and take my free-prescription medicines

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