Every Leaf Tells A Story

Leaves fall in their thousands,
possibly their millions;
a landscape lit from below
like golden snow.

And as I stand and gaze, slowly
breathing golden air,
enter (stage left), a man
with dog.

‘Autumn leaves!’ he says
and ‘wonderful’ I reply,
watching the dog
nose down, pulling at the leash.

‘Ah, wonderful, except’ –
(and here he smiles)
‘he has to sniff
every
single
leaf‘.

It’s been a while since I posted here and it feels good to be back. I’ve been drawing and writing and posting on my other blog but I’ve slipped out of the habit of slowing down and being more reflective, so I hope to put this right.

It’s not that I haven’t been noticing things – but more perhaps that I haven’t been giving them enough space. And having a place to put thoughts like this is like having a quiet garden set aside, to sit in and not to think, and just to let things grow. It’s a good season for change.

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Dive In

As deep as you can,
dive in.
Breathe,
and forget
children’s voices
even the robin, singing.
Be astonished,
the shock
of yellow,
spotted with fire
like a fallen sun.

Stop For A Moment

Painted in light
white upon white
snow, and sunlight.

Wait

Wait.
In a few moments
the shadows will be longer.
Perhaps
someone will walk by,
or not;
perhaps a robin
a flash of tawny feathers
a splash of russet red
will loop suddenly
into the picture,
and perch. Perhaps,
perhaps not.
In a minute or two
warmed by the sun
maybe my shoulders won’t ache,
and my mind will be clear.
But my nose may be cold,
and my fingers, and
I’ll remember there’s tea
and chocolate cake,
and all my thoughts
in the space of a moment
changed, changed.

Roses Not Eaten By Snails

As the wind blows
the petals of the rose,
so my thoughts fly,
scattered, like clouds
in the September sky.

(* The rose bush is now producing flowers faster than the snails can eat them, which is making everyone happy, especially the snails.)

Summer’s Sweet Dream

Even at quieter times of the year when life shouldn’t be frantic, it seems I can still become frazzled and overwrought. It sometimes feels like I’m caught in an endless repeating cycle, but at least if nothing else it serves as a reminder that feeling stressed is less to do with circumstances and more to do with how we meet them. This is not the first time that I’ve written about this and I’m certain it won’t be the last.

Feeling like an over-wound alarm clock about to go off is a pretty good signal to pause and take stock. I know I’m not as wise or considerate towards myself as I should be, and I also know that somewhere inside me there’s a wiser and kinder person who’d like to help if only I’d let her. On this occasion I realised it was time to go for a walk.

Wandering around with a camera and not thinking, at all, of anything, is a pretty reliable way for me to unwind. It’s a bit like just floating about, and looking, and blinking – and suddenly you have a photograph (such is the extraordinary wonder of a phone camera that doesn’t even feel like a camera) and I can relax into doing this for long minutes at a time, until I’m just happily bumbling about in a sort of visual dream.

I haven’t done nearly enough of this lately and it’s like taking a long drink of cool water when you’re hot and tired and desperately thirsty….

I have a suspicion that all this aimless wandering around gazing at things with an empty mind is probably far more valuable and powerful than it would seem. It’s hard to quantify or describe, but it’s far more than just a way to relax. And long after I’m home again, not just hours or days later but months, even years afterwards, at times a part of me is still out there in the woods, under the trees. Sometimes when I catch myself whirling into wound-up alarm clock mode I remember to pause and grope for stillness and a way back. And occasionally memory will float to the surface in the form of words, which then turn into pictures, which then become once again a kind of dream…..

Raspberries, strawberries,
peaches and cream,
sunlight and shadows
are summer’s sweet dream.

Wandering slowly,
unhurried, through trees;
picking up words as they
fall through the leaves.

Picking up words
and writing this song;
meeting each moment
as it comes along.

Raspberries, strawberries,
peaches and cream,
sunlight and shadows
are summer’s sweet dream.

Compassion

After a morning
of pain
(not mine)
I lay down
and tried
to run away.
It didn’t work.
The pain ran with me.

Pain is a fast runner.
It can stick to you
like a shadow.

Exhausted, fearful
I tried a different tactic;
stopped running,
turned to it
and smiled.
Spoke to it
and listened.

Discovered
we are not enemies.
It is not evil, simply
the way things are.
It needs my love
and runs after me
to ask it.

I can reach out to it
now, touch it, even.
I can feel my heart melt.
We can sit together
in the half-light,
listen to each other’s stories
and hold hands.

Weekly photo challenge: One Love

State Of Mind

I’m going down deep.
Every hour or so
When I’m edgy and rattled,
confused,
I’m going to breathe slow,
and simply let go.

I’m going up high.
I’m going to lie
on a cloud and head for
the sky!
I’ll put everything else to one side
and just go for a ride.

I’m going down deep,
and I’m going up high,
but I’m not going far.
An infinite distance
is right where we are.

One of the things about ME (or chronic fatigue syndrome) is that you have much less than most people of what in a computer is called RAM – random access memory – the part of your brain that can quickly recover things that you’re currently concerned with, and lets you do one thing while mentally stacking up a fair few others in the background. I can’t do this. If I try, or if I have to do it for more than about a minute, I crash, just like a computer with not much RAM. And I mean crash – both mentally and physically.

This has been happening a lot lately, and so I’ve been gently steering myself into calmer waters. Coping with ME a lot of the time involves trying to create new neural pathways, and at the pace of a snail, or a glacier, changing the patterns that are hard-wired in my brain.

There are lots of ways to do this. Lying on my back with my eyes shut, and letting words slide about without interfering with them until they arrange themselves into a poem is just one.

State of Mind is this week’s photo challenge.

Setting A Trap For The Moon

I’m going to
set a trap
for the moon;
catch it
and hold it
just for a moment
and then set it free –
just for the joy
of letting it go
and watching it fly.

I’m going to
lie in wait
with my snares
and my lines,
watch it approach,
then snap! and I’ll have it
there in my hand.
Oh! What a wonderful
thing it will be!
One second to touch it,
to feel it, to know it,
to greet and salute it
and then –
set it free.
Oh! What a wonderful,
wonderful
thing it will be.