One Mindful Moment

A Memory

The beautiful memory

Of a loved one’s face -

But even remembering

Brings the promise

Of another farewell

 

Waiting

In late winter sunlight

Snowdrops wait for daffodils

The table awaits a glass and a bottle of wine.

Beneath the table,

the fallen autumn leaves rustle and stir...

Ladybird

In the morning breeze

A dead leaf spins

Curled and brittle.

Wrapped inside -

A ladybird sleeps.

(The ladybird was discovered when I was cutting back the dead growth in the herb garden today, and carefully placed elsewhere. 'Mindful Moments' this week will be poems written as part of the Eastern Therapeutic Writing course that I am taking with Kaspalita Thompson at Writing Your Way Home)

Summerhouse

Even in the cold, dreary wetness of winter,

Down by the leaf-choked pond

The Summer House awaits the watching eye,

The listening ear, the writing pen.

 

Gently, a breeze through the Japanese chimes

Calls me to attention;

‘Listen! Springtime approaches!

Clear pond! paint shed! summon friends!’

Abutilon.

Little orange crinolines, enwrapped in russet shawls

Unceasingly arriving, one following another, through nine seasons.

Never resting... I'm exhausted for you.

Valentine

Is it just habit –

or with unfailing hope

That still, after decades,

I collect the post

With one eye seeking

An unfamiliar script

On the Valentine

That never comes

(Painted tin heart from my dear friend Liz, given on the occasion of my graduation).

Still

Through baking sun, wind, rain, hail, snow

By the pond,

Amongst the bamboo,

A corner of the garden remains

Still. Peaceful.

Always, a point of tranquility

Waiting for me.

Halted

The temperature plummets -  

A freezing, white ruff collar  

surrounds the Green Fuse,

arrested in mid-burn.

Stuff

Persistently,

They congregate in the kitchen

Collections of little items

Brazen in the face of my tidying mind.

Disorderly.

None with a category

Nowhere for them to be ‘filed’

They exist in limbo

So I dump them in a drawer marked ‘Stuff’

At last. Named and shamed – and hidden.

Order is restored...

...for now.

Power

Pip – bewildered. Bribed with a few treats, shut in to the conservatory while the wild birds are feeding.

What power we hold and exert over the creatures who live near to us.