letters to Mum IV – healing comes in smiling

Tags

1970s, 1998, 2014, abandonment, cancer, chemo, child, Christmas, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, Genesta Road, Hakuin, honesty, Joseph, letter, love, mother, Mum, Oscar Wilde, pain, parent, smile, talking, time, Zen

 

 

 

                                                                                              261298

                Dear Mum,

                                good to talk with you over Christmas
                                              honest and open
                                              I love that even when we don’t meet
                                              we can say we haven’t met to each other
                                                              when needed; we had

                                              a good holiday
                                              set everything up and
                                              let it all happen
                                              by itself
                                some of it was boring
                                some of it was tinsel-ly
                                Joe* called it ‘Winterval’
                I call it the gift to see like a child; recent dreams

                                of Eglinton Hill**
                still coming to terms with Dad leaving
                                after all these years … we had all been left
                                              we all had to survive, we all had to move down
                                              from Eglinton Hill to terraced Genesta Road*** –
                                              environment of survival – with the silly talk
                                              and crazy plans of becoming through the 70s

                                healing comes in smiling on the pain we carry
                                              befriending dis-order to help the heal
                                                              with the benign mind it ensues (it is
                                not the perfect but the imperfect that
                                                                      is in need of our love said our Oscar****)

                                              you might have
                                              good years left

                                              not cured but
                                              checking the

                                              cancer with
                                              little giggle and

                                              slight hysteric
                                              and you are right:

                                              bugger the dignity
                                              bugger the unfairness and
                                              bugger the chemo

                                Zen Master Hakuin was accused
                                of fathering the child – ‘is that so!’
                                he took care of the child – just so
                                the mother confessed, the parents
                                apologised and in yielding back the
                                child – ‘is that so!’

                much love, mark

 

     * eldest son; Mum was a Jehovah’s Witness and abstained from celebrating Christmas even though she loved the season when she was younger; Joe’s comment somewhat echoed the argument that Christmas had been hijacked
    ** large, semi-detached, Victorian 4-bedroom house where we (my Mum, my brother, my Grandmother and myself) lived up until 1971; no longer able to keep hold of it we had to move down the hill to …
  *** … Genesta Road, terraced, 3-bedroom, someone else’s wallpaper on the walls until we could change it ourselves
**** we shared a love of Oscar Wilde’s wit

 

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
abandonment wormhole: amid
child & time wormhole: I could step / more open
Christmas wormhole: on
Dad wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
dream wormhole: my fidgety self
Eglinton Hill wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
Genesta Road wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
Joseph wormhole: dream / 140603
love wormhole: happy birthday, my love
mother wormhole: the retriever the daughter and the mother
Mum wormhole: letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually
smile wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
talking wormhole: city-centre-coffee-shop / talk

 

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the zen of grandmothers

Tags

1978, being, muse, Nan, openness, portrait, Zen

 

                                          here is a triplet of early poems
            evoking a different season in a different time by a younger mlr
                      of my eternal grandmother
                      who died in 1989 but remains
                      one of the strong threads that
                                completes me through time

 

‘my grandmother’s …’ the zen of grandmothers

 

morning a pastel sketch with word-highlighting

 

morning / through the / open door my grandmother lived through open doors and allowed the puffs of air in that we might breathe

 

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

being wormhole: “crop / rotation”
muse wormhole: ‘how beautiful …’
Nan wormhole: ‘standing astride …’
openness wormhole: travelling is fresh

 

‘when sitting just sit …’

Tags

2011, 5*, sitting, writing, Zen

 

 

 

                                                  when sitting just sit
                                              when writing just write
                                               above all don’t also

 

 

 

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

sitting wormhole: don’t meditate / like a scientist
writing wormhole: communication / ing

 

single fat cherry

Tags

'scape, 2010, 4*, cherry, copper beech, Crowborough, walking, Zen

 

 

 

                                all Zen-like
                                I approached the
                                young copper beech
                                by the supermarket – c’mon
                                              snap out of it! –
                                looking down someone
                                had dropped a
                                single fat cherry
                                on the steps

 

 

 

Crowborough wormhole: ‘indicating …’
walking wormhole: ‘a tree …’

 

warp and weft

Tags

2011, 20th century, 4*, Allen Ginsberg, comics, divorce, emergence, growth, reading, Salinger, sitting, teaching, writing, Zen

 

 

 

                                warp and weft

                19th century

        the gift of place
        the reassurance in hierarchy
        the leather briefcase of school
        the comic-books of universe
        the immanent lineages of Tibet
        the cognitive planes of teaching

                20th century

        the opening powerlessness
        of 2nd November 1967
        the nod of Ginsberg
        the swell of Salinger
        the mu of Zen
        the plink of poetry

                21st century

        sitting

 

 

 

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

20^th century wormhole: bargain
Allen Ginsberg wormhole: dream
comics wormhole: and
divorce wormhole: south horizon
emergence wormhole: ‘there’s a hole in our garden …’
reading & Salinger wormhole: biography
sitting wormhole: sit
teaching wormhole: dry rot
writing wormhole: even though