Intermediate Destinations

You might know of this in your own life

Where one step seemingly follows another

Yet all the while your direction is being changed

As you climb the steps to the upper deck

Or stand outside in the autumn mist

Waiting for an indicator to flash or a sign to be given

But you were the one, were you not

Who flew to Helsinki, who flew to Stockholm

In your very best blue business suit

You strode through snowdrifts to eat Chernobyl reindeer

You stepped beside the marketeers from the archipelago

All the while letting the direction take you at its will

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Ruffled Feathers

Silver grey light effusing

Emitting joy from however far

Yet from where comes the interference

What causes the all disturbing buzz

Surely not from the settled sky

Or the writer’s awakening mind

There must be a cause

To cause the effect of noise

Noise with no suitable purpose

Except if it was from a primary object

And the disturbance

Is simply a secondary effect

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Development

Hesitation, afraid to say

That which you are not certain to be true

Easier to confirm all past mythology

To take a firm position among a lack of reality

Unable to develop into new situations

Without the fear that longing will return

Or maybe not ever go away

Such is the weight of history and life

All the while knowing

That sitting on the fence 

Does not nourish the mind

Or the body, or the spirit, or the sou

Better to be bright as the blue sky

Better to be warm as washing on the line

Therewith to wear the quirky smiles of a lifetime

Brought about by place, by peace, by harmony

Let the love lights then truly enter

With no more thoughts of foreboding

Be joyful for the entrance of passionate play

Fear not for the future of the longer days

Bask in the abstraction of beauty

Hold what you can in your hand and heart

Sure the pains are in no hurry to leave you

Yet they too fall to the rules of impermanence

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Perceptions

I am at the hospice listening to cricket

Where boundaries are being scored at will

The taxi driver has asked me to wait here

Just in case you thought I was seeking respite

My mind goes into a riot when I see the young man

Come out of the building to embrace his partner and child

All are smiles and hugs and laughter

What should I make of such joviality, other than admiration

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Role

In readiness for our small meditation sangha

I listen to the monks of Plum Village sing and chant

I think of the brethren who reside there

And in other such organisations around the world

I wonder that I never joined such a place

Instead I have kept myself to myself

Yes, it is true that I have visited monasteries

And taken part in silent retreats

Yet I have not gone so far as joining a community

Nor have I ever taken up with a sect of any kind

But right now, as I imagine they sit together for supper

There is a part of me which says that it is a pity, a waste even

That I have not been an integral part of such a collective

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