You lent me the word Conversation

You lent me the word Conversation
Which I would like to make more of
You sold me your House of Belonging
Which I would like to become my shelter

Your phrasing is familiar
I can hear you
As I read your words

The whole idea of one place
For one person
To invite many people

Yet, then
To be home for one person
Yes, that rather appeals to me

It offers itself up
As something I may once have had
As something I may have once again

Yet in this house already
There are many desks
Many places

For a quiet person
To write quietly
Or for an enraged person

To rant profusely
Or best of all
For one who is at peace to be peaceful

There are too many study books
On the peat herringbone Bowmore stool
Yet I am no intellectual

Nor do I have a strong deep memory
I forget the words
Almost as if I choose to discard them
In search of the more familiar shelters

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There is a lightness to this day

There is a lightness to this day
A lightness in which I think I could find shelter

It is not simply a lightness
From the light of day

Although that lightness
Is with me in abundance

But there is a lightness in mind and body
Which arose through meditation and writing

It is there, within me and for me
It is around me, it is above me

It is that very same shelter
For which I have long been searching

I needed to hear the words
I needed to expose belief

That is the belief in faith
Without any substantive reasons

Yet also to be told, thankfully
That there is more out there

But that we will always
Be further from what we know

Than we are
At this very moment

Or the very next moment
And so life will go on, ad infinitum

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Without the internet

Without the internet
I am encouraged
To be more prosperous and purposeful
To find a different kind of shelter

I am unable to tell the world
Of how I am feeling
Neither can I ask the souls of the world
What it is that they feel

Instead to tell the page
That the dream was repetitive
That it woke me at five
But then let me sleep again

Also to let the page know
That the sound of gulls
Always reminds me
Of days at the seaside

Yes, once I had a shelter
Within the iodine salted aroma
Of the sea or ocean
Where for a while time stood still

I was away from the world then also
Living, as they say
In the bubble
In the moment

And so I look to the leaves
Made to flicker by the breeze
I look at my neighbour's trees
And wonder if he is disconnected

I am not the hermit
Nor do I desire to be so
I have high hopes for conversation
Even for reconnection

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A walled garden offering shelter

A walled garden offering shelter
But this time is not my time
Today is not my day of days
I need to arrange a more private visit

The flowers are awash
With every living colour
The pond is full-on black
As if filled with Pelikan Indian Ink

But this time is not my time
Today is not my day of days
So I shall make a singular visit
Or view my thousand photographs

It is true I came here not knowing
Uncertain of what I might find
In that way then the joy
Counteracts the disappointment

Yet to use that word
Is way less than fair
For the sun it was shining
And a shelter was already there

Though not for me this summer house
And not for many a day I fear
For the wall within a wall
Is one wall too many today my dear

My mind asks too many questions
I cannot find a place to sit
The construct holds too many suggestions
I cannot be at one with it

This was not my day of days
It was not the time to be my time one bit
I ought to consider a rearrangement
When body, mind, and soul are more fully fit

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The breeze and the book are my shelter

The breeze and the book are my shelter
I may even ask them to join me in the garden
Although the breeze may already be there

The book is Derek Jarman’s Modern Nature
A title gifted to him by Maggi Hambling
It is based around his cottage at Dungeness

My shelter though is creaking
For I am being asked
To undertake household chores
Which I never imagined would happen

I don’t know that I ever
Read one book properly
Not in any way that I now remember

I say this as I search for Lotus Leaves
By Thich Nhat Hahn
Whose name I never could spell either

There is a tiredness in my mind
My favourite picture is in shadow
I have completed another book of words

All over the bookshelves there are memories
Waiting for the breeze
To blow their titles into the gardens

What if I never find
The meditation teacher’s handbook
Or don’t ever shake myself
Free of this malaise

I have many pencils with pencil marks to make
Yet I have so few words to say
Not which could be strung together

To make anything worthwhile
Other than the jingles
Of the breeze and the book shelter

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