a far grander / Sangha

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

 

silence

Tags

2019, 5*, being, blue, child, clothes, doing, emptiness, light, mother, others, perseverance, Quakers, shadow, shape, silence, sitting, sun, thinking, walls, windows, woman

                                silence

                there –
                in the round

                some threw fluting gapes
                three to engulf the fourth

                some were cleaved peacefully
                head from leading shoulder

                some wore a chemise, others a shalwar,
                others a collar, one a hand-towel draped quickly over the shoulder be back in a minute

                one projected flanks like enveloping wings
                unaware as she nodded

                her neighbour bathed in the same return, the other sat
                comfortably on nothing at all

                the man held the frame
                with perseverance to allow the shape

                the woman privately understood
                most of what everyone thought, only the

                child contained in the mothers’ arm
                watched the walls dance phantasmagoric

                and only the windows let in
                the blue blue sun

 

Quakers sit in light to worship

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & sitting wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’
blue & windows wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
child wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams
doing & light & thinking wormhole: Four Noble Truths
emptiness wormhole: none and all
mother wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
others & shadow wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
silence wormhole: travel // when I die
sun wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
walls wormhole: looking hard enough
woman wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902

 

Four Noble Truths

Tags

2019, 7*, Bodhichitta, doing, doors, eyes, fly, flying, food, Four Noble Truths, glass, ignorance, liberation, light, sound, suffering, thinking

Four Noble Truths

                and here comes the fly
                brandishing eye-bulbs in seventeen directions

                unaware of in or out
                looking for light or food to go

                finds one truth against the glass and
                findsssszzz the second against the glass

                in seventeen different directions
                at once – in to the room straight

                by my head: do I duck and swat
                (hideous temptation that shudder reminds me

                 no), do I guide it’s flight with foolscap sheet
                (and look at those bodies hung en-wrapped in cornered webs

                 no), the door remains open,
                it has but to fly through, the remaining

                two truths unfound and all unrealised; may the
                supreme and precious jewel

                Bodhichitta take birth
                where it has not yet done so

                where it has taken birth
                may it not decrease but may it increase

                infinitely

 

what more fitting way to conclude this meditating-occupation than the Buddha’s teaching of the Four Noble Truths (there is suffering in life, suffering is caused by grasping, grasping can be loosed, by letting it all go) for liberation and Bodhichitta to extend that liberation universally …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Bodhichitta wormhole: none and all
doing & sound wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’
doors wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
eyes wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
glass & light wormhole: ‘not sure …’
thinking wormhole: despite all / depiction

 

‘and is there homage …’

Tags

2019, 6*, being, doing, equipoise, fields, geranium, immanence, leaves, mantra, rain, river, sitting, sound, Tara, trees, words

                and is there homage to the
                Venerable Arya Tara who sits whole

                within the river crucible one
                and severally to behold; her

                laughter of TUTTARE always
                through those trees, her huge knee

                bent graceful in a thousand diminutive equipoises,
                her right leg stretching out and out

                over rolling fields and far away;
                does she hum with

                proximate mass, does she remain
                when words have stopped –

                no, shh, listen to the fluvial rains,
blink, look at the geranium leaves

 

this is the running couplet to here today and …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & trees wormhole: here today and …
leaves wormhole: looking hard enough
rain & sound wormhole: travel // when I die
river wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
sitting wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
Tara wormhole: Tara mantras
words wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields

 

here today and …

Tags

'scape, 2019, 7*, being, Blake, breeze, clouds, creation, field, hedge, stillness, Totnes, tractors, trees, valley

                and are those clouds
                bent double in-Newton musculature

                poised in-dreadful calliper
                wide across the vale; no,

                no: the tractor makes field up
                in-possible way, and the breeze

                in-forms the trees constant
                even when still; and lo

                there is in-fill between hedge
                and row, here today and …

 

“…till we have built …”

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & valley wormhole: ‘not sure …’
breeze & clouds wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
field wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
hedge wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
stillness wormhole: eyes like petals
trees wormhole: looking hard enough

 

looking hard enough

Tags

2019, 6*, Blake, books, earth, leaves, left, life, looking, path, private, right, roots, smell, stone, streets, Totnes, trees, walls

                down to the right are paths
                wrap ‘tween stone and wall and rind up dale

                that smell of leaf over earth
                and rooting writhed and coupling too to earth

                and down to the left,
                down through constant broadcast high through leaves,

                high streets of venue and outlet to cater for
                every private over life, that

                will yield a book on Blake,
                if not looking hard enough, and books

                that you already had if you
                were

 

and … eventually you have to go into town; in the 21st century you can’t escape from the town …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

books wormhole: beneath
leaves & path wormhole: breakfast
life wormhole: despite all / depiction
looking wormhole: then
smell & stone wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
streets wormhole: riders of the night
trees wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
walls wormhole: travel // when I die

 

‘not sure …’

Tags

'scape, 2019, 6*, balcony, being, glass, houses, identity, illusion, light, moon, seeing, settee, streetlight, twilight, valley, wanting, writing

        not sure
        I wanted
        the over-
        head light
        on, until

        I noticed
        the grills
        of the bal-
        cony rail
        and the

        streetlights
        down the
        valley (before
        lounge
        lights were

        needed)
and myself
                between the both
        reclined to
        the write on

        the settee
        under a
        double full-
        se moon
        amid glazing

 

still in my friend’s apartment in Totnes towards being evening

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & streetlight wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
glass wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
identity & writing wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
light wormhole: riders of the night
moon wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
seeing wormhole: breakfast
twilight wormhole: only
valley wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley

 

‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’

Tags

2019, 6*, air, balcony, bamboo, blue, breeze, clouds, cream, doors, facade, grey, height, history, pastel, pink, sweet-pea, Totnes, vertical, white, windows

                from the cathedral window two stories
                high above town

                the eiderdown cloud has settled
                patchwork greys

                (and pastels blue
                 through the pulled-back door to the

                 balcony); there
                and here, the various facades all cream

                and white, but
                the haphazard verticals of the sweet-pea

                crane pink
                with-out the bamboo spine

                exercising constant flexed ligament to the air
                but not the breeze

 

still in Totnes; ‘stories’ are definitely … sic

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air wormhole: psssssh
blue & grey wormhole: travelling,
breeze wormhole: on / that / day
clouds wormhole: travel // when I die
doors & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
history wormhole: despite all / depiction
pink wormhole: riders of the night
white wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen

 

nowhere / that can be seen

Tags

2019, 6*, being, black, evening, headlights, orange, river, roads, silhouette, streetlight, Sunday, Totnes, travelling, trees, white

                late from the evening:
                the second-floor apartment

                the lights are Jacksoned
                all about the hill, some orange

                and insistent, some white with no design
                to the gash of nothing

                of the river; wait, solitary
                headlights work slow down the road

                into town, but’s OK, it is
                Sunday, they sidle idly behind

                tree-silhouettes and get nowhere
                that can be seen

 

in September we looked after the apartment of our friend in Totnes; we do this from time to time; this time we travelled by train – takes the best part of a day to travel just over 200 miles; we arrived and settled and it was already getting dark; the apartment has a wonderful window, a cathedral window, from the floor apexed into the roof looking out over Totnes settled either side of the river Dart: there’s nothing for it, many evenings, but to turn out the lights and look across the valley at the lights …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being & black & orange wormhole: travel // when I die
evening wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
river wormhole: at Kreukenhof
roads wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
silhouette wormhole: riders of the night
streetlight wormhole: sometimes
Sunday wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
travelling & white wormhole: travelling,
trees wormhole: on / that / day

 

travelling,

Tags

'scape, 2019, 5*, afternoon, blue, crane, direction, fields, golf, grey, horizon, passing, patchwork, pointing, pylon, sky, towers, train, travelling, white, wind turbines, yellow

                travelling,

                an accord of yellow cranes
                pointing all in the direction passed

                golf greens flat and patchwork
                before fields of pylons on the horizon

                pointing awry in the sky yielding
                to cooling towers spuming in the direction passed

                into the sky until the white wind
                turbines underline the blue and grey afternoon

 

travelling north through the midlands to Cumbria back through 32 years of time …

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

afternoon & passing & sky & train & travelling & white wormhole: travel // when I die
blue & grey wormhole: blue sky high
crane wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
horizon & yellow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley