In The Present Moments

These are the lists

That the sangha gave me

These are the lists

From Be Calm Be Happy

I thank Laurie and Vari

and Katie; also

Thich Nhat Hahn, wherever

In the world our minds and bodies are

These are the lists

Which entering meditation gave me

These are the lists

Which the relaxation meditation gifted to me

I thank the earth, the sun

The moon, and the stars

I thank the air, the water

And the mindful ways of life

Spates

Should it be

An autumn Friday afternoon

With the river surging over

The waterfall, bypassing the fish-pass

Could it be

Thirty years, or more, before

That spring Monday morning

A walk on Dartmoor, to the Watercombe intake

Aqua oh aqua

Would it be

A winter weekend

At the moorland reservoir

Making a snowman on the perimeter wall

Should it, could it, would that it be

A full week in the summer

Climbing into waves

Washing toes along the seashore

Singing aqua oh aqua

The Outlook is Mixed

That first raindrop

On the cobbled road

That first ice-cream

By the harbour wall

And so begins, or so began

The dripping-tap approach

To persuade someone

To let you share their bed

The sunshine arriving

As with a certainty of triumph

Or should it be

The beginning of the loss

No amount of French Cafés

Or London streets would suffice

Once the black dog was on its heels

The time has come to rethink or retreat

In between the in between

The unexpected drops of rain

Spots of sunlight though still flashing

A life to grasp, and how, yet how

Quiet now, quieter than before

Quietness which envelopes

The envelopes that I bought

To post my noteworthy letters

Inside Out

The goodness of men and women

The gentleness of men and women

The varied lives of men and women

My words, sincere and heartfelt

Straight out of endoscopy; one probe

From the top, one from down below

Professor Anwar set the scene

Although the nurse before him

Put me at ease with her cheerful manner

But it was the Prof. (I heard others say this)

Who talked the talk before he walked the walk

All the while keeping me informed

And now I look at Jung’s book

And wonder if I might start

My one on one meditations again

For I have a certainty

That my peace and calm

Throughout the procedure also came from within

From my breathing

From my loving kindness

From all the years that my contemplations taught

Such that I might make a trip

To the Abbey in November or December

Investigative results permitting, that is

Boxed In

The first one-third of a litre

Is in the body

Another third is to follow

In thirty minutes or so

I am reading Refusing Heavens

Poems by Jack Gilbert

How can we not

Compare our own lives

Think of good and bad times

Though most are melancholic nostalgia

For what, in all probability

We never truly shared in the first place

The hospital process is new to me

Though hardly an adventure

Although my brother told me

He thought afterwards he could climb Everest

He was a mechanic

Then he taught accountancy

Yet he has offered a medical certainty

In a way which no one else quite achieved

Jack, in his poem Kunstkammer

Says: but the heart is different

It never forgets

You may feel, my body’s definitive reaction