First Day Induction - Final Day Ceremony

The day of the novice

With a new life

Of dedication ahead

How to take this step

To enter into another family

What to leave behind

Stood on the wooden floor

Listening to the sound of the meditation bell

Watching the cremation’s wood burning

Thinking of love

Of all the love known

Of all the love gifted and given

How to take the next step

To find a new mind for memory

To visualise a subtle sublime emptiness

Stood on the mother earth

Listening to the breath

The in-breath and the out-breath

Thinking of love

Of all of the loving kindness

On this day, and the coming days ahead

 

Mindful - Joyful

On this day you passed away

You, Thich Nhat Hahn

My second grandfather

Called

In your 95th year

A new end to your meditations

Calm, Ease, Smile, Breathe

Present moment

Beautiful moment

Breathe

Breathe in

Breathe, breathe out

Galvanised Tin - Extruded To A Tee

It’s slow time on a Sunday

With the way too hot

Black Americano

The old doorway is bricked up

But I don’t give a jot

For the distressed style

And the open tray work

Leading to surface-mounted conduit

Reminds me too too much of my youth

Dust naturally gathers

On the chain suspended Bose speakers

Music, like me, hanging by a thread

Well Observed - Many Stories Told

Eventually the snow falls

Snow and light rain combine

My first time

With time to simply sit and watch

Yet soon, as if my observation

Was not called for

Both snow and rain decline

As the light fades

And, as the sky darkens

The time available shortens

Time for what, do I hear you ask

As I question that thought myself

Maybe doing nothing

Could be as good a place as any to start

And then perhaps to grow, incrementally

Until we reach doing everything

Maybe by now you too

Are thinking about Jules Verne

All of those fabulous Phileas Fogg adventures

As he went Around the world in eighty days

Cast Iron Range - Cooking And Heating

Smokestacks and rampant flags

A winter’s day like any other

Remember your mother

How peacefully she passed

How contented her later days

Will that happen for you

Are you about to turn

Impatience into contentment

Can you make your fire burn

In such and such

And all those other ways