Figuratively Speaking

I had started there and begun to wonder

About the future of my life

Somewhere between the silence and the thunder

Could I find a guide or sign

The sound of the bell from Plum Village

Echoes through the headphones on my head

Sitting in this morning meditation

Could I find the path of peace down which I’m led

Closing in on the end of my eternity

Towards what some perceive as the final truth

I lose my desire for socialised fraternity

Rather to sit and recall my days of youth

I don’t ask the obvious questions

Seek no faith to suspend or extend my passage

I am here and I am happy

I came all this way with all that baggage

The body itself is some days tiresome

No longer a competitor in the freeform sprint

But I do remember being first through the tape

Those times when schoolgirls wore chequered pink

Yet it is more than memories which drive me

Somehow I gather the power to write

It is my favourite, fun-absorbing pastime

To gift me peace with its wayward insight

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Inauspicious

The journey is what takes me

Movement forms the art of letting go

Destination may be the purpose

But it is the travel which lets me know

I did not rise so so early

To be truthful I was feeling rather down

Raindrops and wind pounded at my window

I felt to be on somewhat unsteady ground

When it comes to fight or flight

It is always the fleeing which I run to

When it comes to the clarity of insight

I know I am so so easy to see straight through

Fortunately I have the writing

Which I can use to take me up up and away

No longer constrained by my physicality

My imagination becomes the place in which to play

From the misused chlorine cells of water treatment

On those wasteful West Indies islands

To the inert gas generators built locally and sent

To be installed on fuel transportation stands

Overalls which didn’t fit quite so neatly

Not reaching my steel toe-capped workman’s boots

But I made progress year on year completely

Found my way to pass the ball to he who shoots

Always it was and is the journey which takes me

Progression the faith I pitched my cap at to follow

Destinations only halfway then the purpose

It is the experience, which forges the letting go

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for his Collected Works

Join Me

Encouraged by the power of suggestion

I take an apple from the fridge

I have been listening to Week 3

Of the Mindspace Gratefulness course

Breathing in I am so so fortunate

Breathing out others are so so kind

I am buoyed by the flower's shadow

Waved by the outdoor wind

The room is quiet

The room is peaceful

I am grateful for my past

I am grateful for my present

I know that one day these will merge

But for now I bathe in the sunlight

Open myself up to whatever thoughts come my way

I try to make them welcome, ask them to stay awhile

In that way I revisit the Idle Rocks Hotel

Walk once more on Hebridean beaches

I hope that you will have your own thoughts

Pray take a moment to go there; quietly, calmly

Picture a place which gives you a warm feeling

Think of a time when you felt to be at one with peace

Use the mantra: Breathing in I am so so fortunate

Breathing out others are so so kind

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Subliminal States

The light flickers

Casting shadows

And broken associations

Over the pastel sketch

Such pretentiousness in me

Or supernatural thoughts

That the mirage is a response

To earlier suggestions

Blessed with such superstition

I elongate the pencil’s chiaroscuro

To transform the sun’s rays

Into more than a composition

There, where the crystal

Projects onto the wall

The twigs and branches dance

Above the serene lamp bowl

Meanwhile Max Richter’s

Cassiopeia plays on the stereo

As the body reflectively rotates

Taking it wherever it wills

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Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works

Moving On And Looking Back

I am sixty-eight

I haven’t written that out before

It only happened last week

My financial planning report arrived today

I had not requested it

It is probably a computer generated thing

Sunlight falls on the bookshelf cupboard door

I gaze on it for quite a long time

Shadow and light interest me, they engage me

I am less certain of the blank space

Where Maxim’s painting used to hang

Until it fell down after three years on the wall

We did talk of replacing the chairs

With a large soft settee for cuddling on

But the discussion has not turned into action

Today we have the wood burner lit

From early morning actually

And at one point the room was truly warm

I watched a video about Vipasanna on YouTube 

Which reminded me of my ten day silent retreat

At Dhamma Dipa, somewhere near the Welsh border

Available at Amazon

Christopher's Website
for his Collected Works