
often other folks’
journals prompt me to pick up
pen and brush again162
Betwixt Lakeland & Edinburgh
often other folks’
journals prompt me to pick up
pen and brush again162
awareness gives pause
for conscious gratitude for
oft-unnoticed gifts144
photo by picjumbo.com on pexels.com
one soul gazes and
wonders about the lives of
millions of others135
opportunity
to breathe peace into daily
encounters is oursSRM – MM Haiku 109 Day 139
‘Do you ever just close your eyes on winter evenings to remember summer?’ my friend asked me, earlier today, with a wistful look in her eyes. ‘On winter evenings, certainly,’ I replied, ‘and pretty much most mornings, too.’
Sure enough, I’m an advocate of living in the present, but part of the joy of living now is time found here to re-member the past, thereby inspired to breathe deep today, and begin to imagine and to shape the next second or two, as we do.
So here’s a little revisiting Summer ’16. You’re invited to stay here, now, for a little space, and – hopefully – some present grace …
I’ve tried to count
your petals but lose
track each time
around and recall
that numbers never
touched my senses
with clarity of cold
or warmth or taste or
touch or sight or
scent or sound and
after rain this late
summer morningI note that tall
and elegant you’re
not much of an
accountant either
and for you too
life is celebrated
sometimes by each of
these but in the main
by radically returning
your searching face to
life-raising energy
in sunlightSRM
i
wide eyed owl sits light
on an ancient platform of
oak and sometimes hootsii
foal looks into the
blind eye of an old mare and
thereby knows her depthsiii
blackbird sings for to
call his love who will bring to
birth his future songsiv
bluebells about the
skirt of the hill invite quiet
delight and picnicv
dappled sunlight golden
gladdens the heart of one who
came to it downcastvi
forget-me-not’s call
to minds fractured by life’s cares
is soul’s light withinvii
silk eared labrador
bounds ahead as though present
she already lives thereviii
haughty cat sits on
warmed stone garden wall and is
secretly smilingix
timid orb eyed – tail
quivering beneath beech leaves
slowly awakeningx
man beckoned forth to
nature encounters deep joy
amongst earth’s gloriesSRM
Pipe in hand
There was once an old man lived on Martyrs
Bay who, pipe in hand, told of a foot tall
soul whose hair was green, and – many a long
year since – skittering about the Old Nunnery
garden, he had seenquiet as a mouse and quite inoffensive, she
whispered in human ears: ‘I’m come from a
schlemaig just West of the highest mountain on
Mars by way of light years, aeons, suns and moons
and starsand I whisper a missive from Mother
who sent me: though legend and myth
may sometimes purport otherwise, nothing
in the Universe is ever wholly ruined – for
every atom retainspotential, giftedness and grace, ever cheered
anew by Wisdom’s breeze across its face: so on this
rock though your roof be blown off and you’ve
neither window pane nor door, allow the little
one from a Martian schlemaig a paean to more –for you came here to learn that not only is She
our family name, but Wisdom, dear taller siblings,
is eternally ours, and Her Source, the Same.’And I honour the old man on Martyrs Bay sand, who
content with tobacco and pipe in his hand, speaks
gently even now of a skittering he had seen, and of
whispers shared with a delightful pint-sized sprite
with hair of Iona greenSRM
Stories
Sometimes the stories of
the garden of our lives
are written in ink or
by ribbon or toner and
machine, engineered
instrument or flight-capable
quillSometimes the stories of
our flowering and light
are written in soft breath
gossamer touch, sunlit
thread, the sudden
resurrections of graces
we’d thought might be quite
deadSometimes the stories of
images arise in our hearts
the aching loves and the
false starts and the hopes
and aspirations turned, as on
a wood-artist’s lathe: formed
resuscitationsAnd so day by day I return
to the garden to be still –
howsoever the stories are
inscribed, however revealed
my spirit knows that in this place
simple, silent and smiling –
they willSRM
Origins
Origins in timelessness
primal turquoise and tender
held by the softening sigh of
The Soundborn hearing the mothering
sustaining, nourishing seascape
of Wisdom’s womb – our first
teacher suckles, sings, balancesmakes connections, blankets
secure and hums lullabies
about our shared sky – teaching
the heart to seek answer to oureternal why. Yes, I will forever
remain bound to this
mothering sustaining
in the soul of IonaDepth and flow
and height and breadth
and symphony of
silent musicFrom her I am born
to move outward
to her – and to Wisdom
I will ever returnSRM
Rock of the Aeons
Be still. Be still
until the will to
clatter and clamber
up the hill of life’s
vicissitudes surrenders
with gladness and
placidly to clear-eyed
remembrance of the
level-way – the going
that’s sustained by the
daily choice to stay
within earshot of
singing invitation to
steadying anchor of
contemplation
meditation
resuscitation and
gentle gradation
where movement
inward shepherds
sustains and balances
our explorations
outward –
be still. Be still
until the will
meets the Isle
of the ancient
sanctity. Rock of
the aeons withinSRM