To discern
our place
To commune
To see
beyond our close shadow of death
To focus
my poet mind
I need direction
a qibla
Or some beads to tell
to take refuge from my life:
A candle flame
Only the candle
Flame
Flickering
A journey into quietude
begins
Into that silence
comes tranquillity
And the absence of words
Serenity beyond words:
I become sentient -
conscious of only this moment in the flame of a grain of sand
Of the sun shining through golden autumn trees
Of the clearing mists
dissolving in the valley and above the hills
giving way to rain that fills the sky
so that the branches droop, dripping
as the wind rustles the upper boughs
and drops spatter on the window glass.
Of love
Peace
Perhaps, now, I am no longer physical
But have become a spiritual being
having a human experience
Writing
And in the writing
the words return
Originally published in Mostly Welsh (Y Lolfa 2019, pp.51-52)
Notes
- Moliere: “Without knowledge life is no more than a shadow of death”
- qibla: Spiritual direction (the direction of Mecca)
- Zen Master, Hung Chih, writes of serene reflection in which one forgets all words and realizes – is aware only of – Essence.
- c.f. Blake: Auguries of Innocence: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand…”
- “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but…” Generally attributed to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, a French idealist philosopher and Jesuit priest
