Tags
2019, 6*, identity, mother sentient beings, Priory, Sangha, self, self-image, Swarthmore Hall, thinking
went to Swarthmore Hall
brandishing my fragile self
to open up to all beings
went back to the Priory
with rising grandeurs
of delusion; shall I
relinquish this flaw
of expecting I am so much
more than I appear if only
I were understood …;
then perhaps I could be
more than I could ever
understand and recognise
these beings as already
my own and take
my one and lonely
place with a far grander
Sangha than I could ever have allowed
‘Swarthmore Hall’ is where the Quakers began, Carol did a course there; it is in Ulverston in South Cumbria where we lived soon after we married and started our family, we were aware of the place at the time, but not as students; ‘the Priory’ just outside Ulverston is the Manjushri Institute, a Buddhist college that we lived in; this was the first time I’d been back to visit in 32 years; and … this is the last poem I wrote – 4th September 2019 – I haven’t written one since, not seized to, not tipped towards; I have been letting a lot of things go during these beginning years of my retirement, even my Batman comics … maybe more a spiral than a circle …
————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–
identity wormhole: ‘not sure …’
thinking wormhole: silence
mlewisredford 
“relinquish this flaw
of expecting I am so much
more than I appear if only
I were understood …”
You do a fine job of striking at the core of humanity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
thank you
LikeLiked by 1 person
Indeed, you do such a fine job at striking at the core that it would be a real shame if you didn’t keep seizing, keep tipping…..
Just sayin’.
The bit that Jilanne highlighted reminded me of Merwin’s “Berryman”. Are you familiar?
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58530/berryman
It has been going around and around in my head of late.
And now it has a companion in its orbit.
Thanks for this.
LikeLiked by 1 person
… it’s weird: I didn’t decide to stop seizing or tipping, and it’s not block, I just seem to have run out of petrol and am quite happy with where I’m left stranded – on the grassy hill, overlooking the town …
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here, here (and I hear, hear). Same, same. I think I saw you on that grassy hill….you were wearing that sharp tweed jacket with the leather elbow patches, I believe…..
LikeLike
yep; I waved to you but you’d already turned up a passing tree and were exploring its boughs and branches
LikeLiked by 1 person
AHA! So it was a Squirrel!
Thought is was a rabbit…..no wonder the warren was so well-lit….
LikeLiked by 1 person
A grander Sangha. Sounds like something we all need.
OK, as far as how I read this recent piece…well, all I can say is the Quakers and the Buddhists both! Yes. I love that. And it seems the order of attendance…well, I noticed that too. Please don’t relinquish the grandeurs of delusion—it’s what gets us through the process of writing. That’s my initial response. Like the Berryman poem says, If you must be sure, don’t write. There’s illusion (so Buddhist in tone) and there’s delusion (psychological)—both notions that for me carried this poem in a sense.
And…
As far as the second part of this poem that hit hard, I think you struck a chord with that statement about being more than you could ever understand and “recognise”—both other and self—well, I guess poetry can take us there too, above and beyond the beyond we’re even seeking. And that happens in community, and it happens with words. And words are illusion, too. And they are grand, like community.
Anyway, thanks for sharing. I enjoyed the post. And thanks for being interested in my blog. I really appreciate it.
Thanks for being part of mine!
LikeLike
so, I’ll take (order of) ‘attendance’ ‘illusion’ and ‘delusion’ and mix in with it all a healthy spice of ‘being’; and being is always bigger than any conception and a sublime complement to attendance: the lotus flower opens to the sun which courses unhindered through the sky whether cloudy or not …
… y’kno’what – we three (yep, and old Crabcakes) just became a ‘far grander Sangha’
LikeLiked by 1 person