Nothing (Without Anything)

It is o so difficult

To remember you

When you offer nothing

Whatsoever in return

Though, as if coming here

To sit beside falling water

Would do anything, but add

To the sorrow of separation

I once was a complicated soul

Yet, right now, I don't believe

That I have ever did deny that

Although, yes, you might well say

That I have become

Even more deeply enamoured

With the effects of duplicity

In my attempts at creative writing

But, inside

I feel to be a somewhat gentler soul

You see, I am happy

To sit here beside the river

To know that, somewhere behind me

The star-shaped leaves

Are drifting, like angels, to the ground below

To let everyone know, that once

Our love touched

What o so many dreamers, today still dream of

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Gathering (Without Departing)

In that instant

Of hearing that sweet voice

Then I too

Wanted to sing

I too

Wanted to be able

To express

My joy with this life

A nun

With her iPad

She was the first person

Into Conventual Mass

I had watched her

Walk across the concourse

In the first light

Of the brand new day

The bells tolled

Close to the gathering time

And I remembered

My last time of leaving this place

I had heard then their welcoming sound

Though at quite some distance

For I loaded my car

And o, so so ignominiously departed

I did not know then that I might return

But I have, and I may do so again, and again

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Two More (Without Two To Follow)

It is just approaching five-forty in the morning

There are two Monks here already

As a short peel of bells sound

Two new visitors enter, they sit on the front row

One to either side of the walkway

Two young men; one white, one coloured

Together we waited, in stuttered silence

For the first act of the day to begin

Two latecomers joined the congregation

We were six men now

But only I, had entered from the inner quarters

Vigils proceeded, with meticulous precision

Each Monk seemingly knowing their part

Of the week-worn routines

And the seamless stepped-out sequences

Of suggestion, and response

And of further suggestion, and response

And of readings

Even one from the Book of Wisdom

And one from where I know not, but which spoke

Of God having given love in his own image

And of having gifted us Jesus, to make up

For the disobedience of Adam, and his indiscreet apple biting

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Woken (Without Painkillers)

It is 05:24 when the bells begin to call us for Vigils

I have not had the best of night's sleep

I dreamt, many times, of being confused

In the rearrangement of my poetry

And I do, quite-literally, mean, seeing the text

On the page, and trying to move it from one place to another place

Mostly it was to no avail, because more often than not

The words decided that they did not wish to be moved

I woke early, at just after 04:30 British Summer Time

I spent quite some time massaging my arm

Feeling for the aching parts, stretching out the muscles

And manipulating the tissue, as if somehow to aid the circulation

I do hope that my elbow is going to get better

At least I do have the feeling, and I am able to massage

And to write, about my visit to the Abbey at Buckfast

Or at Buckfastleigh, as many of the words deign to say

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Love Is (Without Fabrication)

These bells are not

The bells of Plum Village

Not that I have yet heard

Those bells toll for myself

Sometimes

We have to be on our own

Sometimes

We have to be alone

To hear the human voices

To bathe, immensely

In the silence, in the light

Of those compounds of love

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