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Sunday, 26 February 2023

Assemble

The meditation did not bring me here

I came of an altogether different accord

It was in a way a choice-less choice

Yet I was the one who made that choice, wilfully

With no one else in mind


Compassion then only for oneself

How else might that be

The storms are over

The days, the nights of rolling thunder have died down

The hours, the hours of sheet and fork lightning are over


There is a calmness abroad

Yes, it may well be superficial

If I should explore the surface I may well disturb it

That place, that stillness, that tranquility

Which this early morning gifts to me


Where I am able to think back

To reinvent, to recreate your kitchen table scene

Even earlier in the morning, before light breaks

Moments when I imagine you would sit

To catch your thoughts, in a letter which you send to me




Saturday, 25 February 2023

Acceptance

I know more than I know*

I have taken you within me

Within me as my contradiction

Yes I have bought into John’s words

Bought into all of the possibilities 

Which your contradictions might gift to me


It did not take a little time

It was not without pain

Or suffering; yet I was steadfast

Here my belligerence helped me

For on many occasions I could have capitulated

Yet always I hung on in there, however fragile


Now, today, I smile; a smile

From I know not where, other than

From all of those contradictions

Which you brought with you

Contradictions, which one by one you handed over

To become more secure, within my domain



* John O’Donohue: Celtic Wisdom - Inner Landscape



Friday, 24 February 2023

Past Master

I found the book

Spine broken

Tea stained cover

Pages browned with age


Sadly it brought purpose

To an otherwise purposeless morning

In bed until eleven

Not much more to it than that


I also came across the biscuits

Chocolate digestives no less

I don’t recall that you had a favourite

You not being a sweet-tooth, unlike me


His poem, you know the teacher’s poem

There on page eighteen, his poem

Which says so much about you

Although with words which I never could have raised



Thursday, 23 February 2023

Familiarity

The poem about the son struck me

Also the one about the father

Did you not also write

Such relationship poems


Words of knowing, of not knowing

Of curious closeness, of disappointing distance

Did you write out of longing

Or longing for closure


It makes no sense, that I know

Yet the dense matter does matter

As a matter of fact, on some days

It is all that seems to matter


Words for quite unbridgeable words

Except for the clapper bridges in my mind

Words for no purpose of purpose

Except for the purpose of lifting away my working time


My now time; my dawn times, my dusk times

The lifting away is what the poet gave me

A lift in the spirits, a lift for the sensibilities

A whole layer of lifts, into your other world



Wednesday, 22 February 2023

Confectionary

I would not expect you to sympathise

Because the butter won’t spread on the scone

After all they are delicious; fresh, warm scones

Almost straight out of the oven


The butter is also fresh, that is

To say it is not soft, nor curdled

It too is straight from its place of keeping

Where it clearly is kept in good shape


I would not expect you to place much store

In my story of the scone, or the butter

Neither the jam, not forgetting the filter coffee

For here they do not do Americano


Nor for you to know that I was on my way

To reflexology, for an hour of calm

As I have my feet scrubbed, massaged

Altogether pampered


I could not tell you, until now

That I would have a small fan

In the treatment room, which gave

A cool breeze, in this the heat of summer