Spirit Bay
An island floats in the turquoise sea.
Around, the waters wax and wane emboldened by a determined onshore, driving spume-topped waves landward.
Intermittently, in the troughs, the bobbing heads of hawksbills can be spied, scouting for shore.
Standing guard, a phalanx of palm trees defend the beach. Trunks
bend away from the wind, their jagged crown of fronds gesticulating.
Nodding excitedly. Back and forth.
Amongst the trees a herd of sheep (black headed persians) champ, kicking sand
in the air where a pair of weathered, brown feathered, pelicans hover occasionally
plunging into the surf, then settling, rocking, and rising to
dive again.
In the skies above, rain and shine conspire to conjure a rainbow.
It falls from cotton wool clouds that surrender generous raindrops, shattering the sea’s surface.
At close of day a cinnamon dusted sun sinks behind distant hills and darkness drops.
Through the night, the surrounding elements combine to become one.
Land, sea and air unite. The weather whirls and swirls like an inseparable, unstoppable being.
It takes control in the blackness.
But, with daybreak, the wind and waves appear calmer. More soothing sounds surround.
Gentle surf breaks on silver sand.
Carefully, even lovingly washed,
by the waters of the Caribbean Sea.
Turtle Reef, Jumby Bay (Spirit Island), Antigua. 2nd February 2024.
The Storyteller
Rolls into the room. Gracefully, like a plus size ballet dancer, shimmying through a viscous liquid.
Sparks fly as he makes eye contact with assembled guests, crowded together in the overly warm, beige lounge. In that moment, it is either that the room shrinks, or he expands, filling the space with a suave sophistication so emblematic of 1970’s middle class England.
We turn to take him in.
Aside from the allure of his glistening turquoise eyes I am impressed ,once again, by the almost impossible stature of his moustache. As if lifted from a World War One recruiting poster, it is in this moment (and will be for years to come) quite outstanding. Its auburn elegance stubbornly refusing to fade even as the years take their toll on other aspects of his appearance.
Following introductions and some small talk, he seems to settle and opens his arms to embrace the assembly.
Starting to tell his tale, we shuffle to the edge of his stage. With a subtle inclination of the head this way and then that, he draws us in. We have heard this all before of course, but this takes nothing from the moment. We are not in this for the punchline. We understand that the magic is in the telling, rather than the ending. The journey, not the destination.
I cannot repeat what he said. Not because it cannot be repeated, but because I am not him. In the years that have passed (and since his passing) I have irregularly turned, as he so often did, to tell my tales. Doing so with trepidation and some fear, I often feel him at my side and his hand on my shoulder. Whispering, ’remember, this is how it is done, this is how.’
For my Father
A letter from Ballyvaughan, County Clare. May 2023.
Inside the cottage we hunker, a cloistered congregation warmed by a smouldering furnace.
The poet’s words float in the air, hang above our heads and we reach up to draw them down as they resonate. Some soothe the senses whilst others unsettle, piercing the spirit.
Puncturing the soul.
And we settle into a familiar rhythm, modulated by expressions of accord; associated smiles, sighs, and sobs.
Electrical energy wires us together. Invisible, indissoluble links gradually gather vigour and stream out of the window into the air, over sea and land.
So powerful and so positive. Connecting far and wide. Touching both the future and the past.
Amongst this melee, we wrestle with the opposites of ‘wonderful’ and ‘terrible’, whilst understanding both are true.
And, I struggle to make sense of the choices that seem open to me when, in reality, I have no choice at all.
And so, I sit here. A hollowed-out shadow.
Because I also rest, more fully in another life. Beside you.
There, my pen is not taken up.
A letter lies un-written.
This path is not taken.
To Rory.
Hope in any other have I none
After Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī and David Abram
The wind draws and blows like a collective breath sounding.
Heavy air coaxes the breathing heart into a deliberate dance,
as you sing through the sleeping land, remembering and forgetting.
Wondrously entranced by an invocation of language and landscape and love.
Heavy air coaxes the breathing heart into a deliberate dance,
to see how we are living, how we have lived and how we can live.
Wondrously entranced by an invocation of language, landscape and love;
of pain and loss, and the deep wound where the bright light enters.
See how we are living, how we have lived, how we can live,
as you sing through the sleeping land, remembering and forgetting
your pain and loss and the deep wound where the bright light enters.
And the wind draws and blows like our collective breath sighing.
A Nocturne
This is where you are.
Walking through the gloaming, gathering around you.
Charcoal shadows settle in recesses, pool in hollows, before overflowing,
spreading across the land. In this moment of compulsory liminality, breath catches
as the blackness rolls - surging forward like an ebony wave.
You fight to stay afloat before inevitably submerging, the tentacles of night, wrapping
themselves around you, captured, constricted, the whole world contracts, as cold
silently seeps into the creases of your clothing. Dark has undone light, day
undone by night. Groundless, becoming part of this, you are swept away,
not finding your feet, till daybreak.
Another Place (a haibun)
Below. Light sparkles on the water as spume topped waves’ peak and trough, across an endless aquatic tablecloth. A liquid flow blown onward by inaudible breath, toward an unimagined destination.
Intermittently the surface sheen is obscured by the shadow of a companionless cloud, drifting high up in the heavens.
Passing south, south-east of Tasiusaq, the waves begin to break on icy shores. Water rides up on unrelenting rock-hard tundra which extends endlessly, like an unimaginably enormous Christmas cake.
Almost immediately, impossibly bright white, shrouded mountains rise up to meet the plane. Magnificent, crenelated peaks soar and then swoop into uninhabited, unexplored canyons.
Above. The vessel, seems suspended in space, floating on a pillow of frozen air.
Periodically, invisible powers force it to rise and fall uncontrollably. Seat bellt lights iterate - flashing and pinging, resounding with urgency.
An industrial, embryonic hum echoes continuously through the cabin.
There is suspension of time as well as space. An energy sapping ennui pervades the scene.
Time creeps forward.
The surrounding air sighs, and then slides into stillness.
Altitude 35,998 feet; Distance to destination 2490 miles; Time to destination 6.49.
Six hours and forty-nine minutes.
Chicken curry or vegetable pasta? Ice in your pepsi?
Sharpest of shadows
Reflections not reflecting.
Falling into ice
The Sticking Place.
Belatedly, a tribute, to the bravest person I have known.
Conscious that I am late to lift my pen, many years since you have flown.
I hear my words and catch myself, remembering the essence of self-compassion is innate,
And with that understanding and that freedom, it is good to start now, no need to wait,
Or be held back by further dalliance and restraint. I’ve praised others before now, near and far,
So now is our time. But what could be said in verse that would be fully match the courage of your star?
It may not concern youthful courage, confounding critics or the search for a soul mate,
No, instead the focus falls in middle age, affected by frailty and worry as to your state.
The diagnosed disorder was erratic in approach, sometimes hidden…sometimes hideous,
Time taking its toll, the consequent impact on our family was heinous.
But also, over time, and with support, you showed the strength to face the demon,
You embraced what life had to offer despite the uncertainties and unknown,
And, though struck down and robbed of your movement, grace, and poise,
Surrounded by your boys, for years you were able to experience the world’s many joys.
So, as I stood in the church thirty years after the doctor’s fateful words were shared,
It became clear to me then, as now, you are the bravest person for whom I’ve ever cared.
For Mum.
Stuck in Sunday
Time suddenly seems stationery, in that moment motionless as
rising up inside me of comes an onslaught of breathless panic. Then
appearing automatically before my eyes, words rear up and wrap themselves around me, as my
poise deserts me and I begin to flail,
patience evaporating, desperately striving for a solution or a salve, as
echoing thoughts transport me into trepidatious futures, and razor-sharp sensations slowly leave me, leaving me,
Drained.
Across The Water
After David Whyte.
I see myself standing on the facing shore, indistinctly, but clearly enough,
to sense my son and I, gazing back from the past. And in these
moments the lost years seem to fold in on themselves and I yearn to grasp the few
memories that slip through my fingers. I have no hope of finding words
that could help my spirits soar, my heart stretching out across the water. Floating thoughts are
mingling in the air, entwined with swooping seagulls who seem to consume them, enough
it seems to satisfy their craving alongside morsels of food scavenged from café tables. This
banking flock expunge the exposed memories; unaware of an opening,
the presence of a path between two lifetimes, a brittle, breaking connection to
another sphere. And with its failing I fall back from a hoped for past life,
into this present one. Lost in this space, walking up another earth, we
drown in the doldrums of this torpid afternoon. I have no means, I have
no power to bridge the chasm. To fly with this flock of gulls who have refused
passage, sealed off my striving for the receding shore. I now know, it will not be until
another time, that we may be together. I hope then, past and future can become one. In the here and now.
At Inari Shrine (a haibun)
Shallow steps lean into the hillside and cedar trees bow in from surrounding slopes.
Vermillion arches frame travelers’ as they snake up the pathway, the reassurance of autumn sunshine dwindling as the verdant canopy intensifies.
These red, orange frames gather closely together, appearing as one continuous, endless corridor stretching into the distance. The path soars and dips like an arboreal rollercoaster, visitors drawn up the hillside under hanging lanterns, waving in the wind.
So many, lose the magic of this moment, huddling together to pose for soon forgotten pictures, or have heads down striving to reach the mountain peak. Distracted, they pass the thousands of beautiful shrines that dot the route.
Taking time to rest here, one is surrounded by a multitude of wooden posts commemorating the souls of beings past. The dead press in closely empowered by some ancient knowledge, of love and loss.
Sitting on the shelf of a shrine there is, despite the coldness of the stone seeping into the bones, a flow of energy and warmth.
It is easy to feel here a sense of kinship between the dead and those still living. Perhaps here is a portal, a gateway to other worlds and spirits. Connecting with those close by and, so far away. Those who have been and those yet to come.
With half closed eyes, shadows shift as dusk falls and the forest thickens. Movements in the trees may be the innocent play of the wind amongst the woods, or perhaps forest wolves circling in the gloom.
Leaving this place, I am elated to have found something significant whilst getting lost in the shadows, moisture, and mildewed stones.
In the next few moments, I find myself back on the main track moving upwards, to the summit of the sacred mountain. From the peak, features on the landscape below appear as objects laid out on a tablecloth, marked by the past and littered with memories.
At the centre, sits the ancient capital itself and standing guard over this tableau are the eternal Higashiyama Mountains. Magnificent and mysterious, unchanging and unchanged through eons.
Once lost but now found
Sit on right for Mt Fuji
Floats over waters
Kyoto. October 2019.
Above the Lough
Morning breaks and the chill of the night recedes.
I wake and see mist spreading across the lough, rolling up the hill toward me.
This condensation clears with the advance of the day and a slight wind shivers the surface of the grey waters.
Heavy silver clouds hang overhead like a blanket, covering and comforting me, and I start slightly as light droplets of rain tickle my skin. A change in the weather, perhaps?
On the near shore below me, densely gathered conifers press themselves urgently against the edge of the lake, whilst in the distance I have the faintest glimpse of the far shore, miles away, still shrouded in mist and mystery.
Above the tips of the conifers, small bands of sheep cling to the vertiginous slopes of the Partry Mountains. Standing individually or gathered in small flocks across the hillside they seem, somehow, to be connected, perhaps conscious of each other’s presence; reassuring each other with intermittent, kindly calls across the valley.
I am surrounded by silence but for the bleating of the sheep. And yet, as I sit, other sounds begin to surface…
The reassuring hum of insects, feasting on flowers in the rockery. Butterflies floating past my head, hanging puppet-like in the air, buffeted by the gentle breeze.
A flock of small birds chattering together in the nearby Veronica bush. Suddenly, bursting out and hurtling like many, mazy arrows into the distance only to swiftly return again at breakneck speed and, kamikaze style, crash back into the purple foliage.
A dog barks plaintively in a neighbouring barnyard, calling out, announcing their presence to the world – ‘I am here, I am here….’
Occasionally, there is the appearance of a vehicle breaking the peace, their arrival heralded by the crunch of wheels on graveled tracks. But just as quickly arrived, they are gone . Out of sight, sound, and mind.
Once again, I am swallowed up into silence, before the sounds of nearby nature come softly surging back.
Throughout, the lough sits serenely and silently at the heart of all of this. Watching this life, the life of its valley, unfurl wondrously above it.
Green Drake Cottage. Lough Mask. County Mayo. September 2022.
Out of the Sounds of Silence
In the meditation hall, early evening, I feel the wind, winding itself around the building, roaring like a wounded animal.
Solid shapes seem to shift in the darkness, moving, rushing at the windows. Building inexorably with an industrial intensity, the storm unleashes its downpour against the glass.
It is raining now, so heavily, audibly outside; it seems as if it is falling inside the room itself.
In this liquid landscape it seems, there is water, water everywhere.
Come the morning, the storm has settled.
I sit, swathed in soft blankets, my hands on warm cushions floating in front of me. There is silence in the hall, but sometimes punctuated by a cough or sneeze muffled, which then drifts away into the ether.
Time almost stands still, as a radiator hisses and clicks next to me, like a thermal clock, marking the slow progress of the day.
From a high window, dappled sunshine flows across my face and I turn to soak it up.
In the hall 53 yogis sit, in lines before the teachers’ dais. As if queuing patiently, hopefully, for a ticket and a train. To nibbana perhaps? Or some other destination unknown.
I feel the porcelain heart, hanging around my throat and I reach for it again, sensing both solace and sorrow. I hold on to it as if hanging on for dear life. As the tears roll down my cheeks, I am somehow comforted by the sounds of other sobs, gently echoing in the hall.
In the kitchen, the only chatter is that of cutlery on crockery. I sit overlooking the garden breathing in fennel tea as watery winter sunshine trickles through the window. Outside the misty glass, a red-breasted robin hops on the flagstones jabbing urgently at clumps of moss.
Sitting here, a sad smile seeps through me as my mind rolls back, remembering things past.
At the top of the building, my bedroom window rattles in its frame as a parliament of owls constellate in nearby treetops. The wisdom of their conversation floats on the wind from the ancient oaks whilst on the lawns below, a flock of sheep graze the sparse, winter grass
The end of the retreat comes, and the lifting of silence is almost too much to bear. At the top of the stairs with bags packed, waves of voices wash up from the kitchen. I steel myself as I descend, preparing to re-enter this world and the one beyond, as best I can.
Silent Retreat. Gaia House. January 2023.
She Walks in Beauty
Hózhóogo naasháa doo
In beauty I walk. With beauty before me I walk. With beauty behind me I walk…. With beauty above me I walk.
The beauty before and around me, but not noticing.
I see this now. After so long. Walking alone. Being alone. Not noticing as I looked inwards.
Drawn forward, drawn on by the excitement on the horizon. Blinkered to my surroundings, to what mattered more, mattered most.
Now, I notice. Noticing not being on time, running out of time. The lost time and the lost years.
And, I notice. Needing time. Making up for lost time, now.
But else what can I do? Accept the present as a gift and look no further? I know I cannot lose either the past or the future. For how can I be deprived of what’s not mine?
I must see the beauty inside, to see the beauty outside.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk.
After Marcus Aurelius and Closing Prayer from the Navajo Way Blessing Ceremony.
For Jo Hammond. Love of my Life. September 2022
Passing Through
Through the trees, air streams soundlessly above
Ebbing, flowing always shifting,
ever present, it wraps around me like a glove.
The fecund forest welcomes and plants’ part, suggesting a trave,
a shelter from the summer haze, a welcome, soothing
from the scorching sun, I feel increasingly tired of.
At my side, ever sways my faithful hound. Connected by love,
we feel this now and every morning, an energy diffusing,
and building and creating an emotional treasure trove
Now, a snaking road reveals a verdant valley, beloved
I am of this abiding view as it is gradually revealing,
appealing aspects I hope never to be free of.
Above, the eternal canopy of the heavens’ hovers
Fragrant clouds spot the sky, gracefully cruising,
across an aerial sea, bluer than one could dream of
These elements seem carved in stone, deeply loved,
and set in place, as if permanently infusing
the panorama. But, in fact, they are a like the fleeting dove,
in truth and time all are lost; and worth much more than we can be worthy of.
A quest for lost consonants (and vowels)
Starting, there is a stretching, yearning for a spark - a connection with a forgotten history. A hunt for the unrevealed.
Deafened by the sound of silence, the past is suppressed by the pressure of the pointless , a bustle of busyness.
Something then slightly, shifts. A rusty cog creaks, the faintest flame catches,
A wheel inches forward.
With the flow of ink at the tip of a pen, a page turns and the slightest wind blows sand from the surface.
Conjured by a strange alchemy something is revealed (not created) and formed.
With the coming to life of this unloved litany, slowly, but with increasing coherency another Nick gazes up at me. Remembered, re-appraised, even re-created?
A companion to take my hand and carry me onwards.
To have and to hold. From this day,
Forward. Until we must part.
Two Worlds
There are two worlds we can choose to live in.
The one in our heads or the one that surrounds us.
The world in our heads, buzzes and flashes with thoughts and emotions good and bad. It’s like being on an everlasting rollercoaster. Sometimes we have our hands in the air and sometimes our heads in our hands.
How we can we step out of this world in our heads, even for a moment, and see the world that surrounds us?
Stopping…….allows gaps to appear.
Life, glides into these gaps like an irrepressible liquid. It flows into the eyes and ears and spreads over our skin, like a gentle electric shock or a sugar rush after a slug of sherbet.
Pausing, allows us to notice. Cool air on exposed hands, sparse leaves rustling in winter treetops, the distant purr of motorway traffic.
The earth teems with life at my feet, if I allow a moment for it come to life. It’s as if someone has suddenly flicked a light switch or rolled up the blinds. We step through a door into an entirely new world or else see the same one ,anew.
The world in our heads and the world around us. It only takes a moment to stop……and switch.
Changing
It is like a liquid flowing softly, silently
Seeping, sweeping through me
flushing
out moments, memories
Like a great wave,
Rolling endlessly
always
moving, soothing. Then finally
subsiding.
It ebbs…leaving me
Changing me,
changed.
The Adventures of an Intranaut
The famous Astronaut steps into the airlock. Ready for a journey of exploration, far above the earth.
Wrapped in their high-tech spacesuit, they are protected from the strictures of space. They are set for adventure, discovery and to boldy go….
Meanwhile unnoticed, an ‘Intranaut’ sits 250 miles below, undergoing an adventure of their own.
Sitting in solitary silence they are not going ‘out’, but ‘in’.
With mindful inward exploration, they seek to experience and understand better, the apparent mysteries of body and mind.
As with the space explorer the Intranaut moves toward, rather than away from, possible problems; even though they may face challenges as daunting as those present in the heavens above.
But the ‘Intranaut’ wears no discernible protection. Armed only with the security of their sensations and a connection with the present moment. The inward adventure begins….
Both explorers will face difficulties but the benefits of discovery, offer the opportunity for considerable understanding and the promise of freedom.
Inspired by The Brave Little Intranaut Print, by Kalyana Bliss. https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/kalyana-bliss/shop
The Hornbeam
The Hornbeam stands
Like a sentinel in the centre of the field. As I approach I sense it watches and welcomes me, as I walk.
With its deep roots in the dark soil, it has connection with a world of memories below, whilst its branches stretch upwards and outwards.
Towards the sun.
It grows sure and strong in partnership with my son. Nourishing and protecting, indissolubly connected. Through this communion, his life force and energy flow upwards
And spread out into the world.
Autumn Leaves
Remembering, raking piles of leaves on that damp November day
I remember your advance and my retreat, the strike and an electric shock of pain that has echoed down the years. In that moment the birth of a belief in being culpable. For everything.
With this looking back I feel sorrow rising in my body, as I rake up the memory and it sends me spiralling back to that moment. Once again, I am exposed and vulnerable. In the front garden of my grief.
It wasn’t my fault, I was never what you said, although for some years I believed I was.
The little boy inside me has fought to be free from this. I hope these words may help him.
The forever struggle, to make sense of this. Or make it a secret.
Being Here Now
My brain somehow shifts gear
An ineffable, orthogonal change in direction
As time slows, I find myself on an open plain
Full of space and spaciousness
I am noticing beginnings as well as endings
A sense of energy and light.
Something, floating above my head, sweeps down me, through me.
Lighting me up.
I am not alone, here, now.
In Dreams
I sense my son in two different worlds.
I remember him clearly in my everyday existence . But he also comes to me as I sleep.
In dreams, he lays his hand upon my shoulder and says, ‘It’ll be fine Dad. I’ll be fine.’ But, as I stir and find him absent, I feel my sadness surge like a swollen river.
Later, I rest my head again and step into that ‘other’ reality, I may find him there, or may not.
He comes to me when I least expect, and when I am most in need.
I live in hope of these moments.
Leaving Someone Behind
It is hard to say these words. But it is important
It is important because is hard
It is terribly hard to leave someone behind, even if they don’t want to follow.
As I walk, this is what I think as, I am followed home by a faithful sheepdog after miles together. Now far from her home.
Arriving, at the door of the House
Saying “stay”, closing the door and not re-opening.
What happens then, what happens next?
When we don’t know. It is terribly hard to leave someone behind .
The Tree
I am aware of the contrast between constancy and fluidity
The solidity of the trunk and then above, the swaying branches and leaves waving in the wind.
On the ground, I feel a palpable sense of connection as I place my palm on its trunk. An unimagined energy moves into me. Like the thrill of meeting an old friend
Above, the leaves whisper mellifluously, and with sunlight, create dapple drawn patterns on the forest floor below.
The Tree. A wonderful, everyday miracle of unnoticed life. A clear contrast with the ephemerality of our own existence.
Stuck
Like a train stationary at the station; in a dead end with cars queuing up behind.
Or finding myself at the front of a supermarket queue, without a wallet.
I think of him and feel a pressure, pushing up behind my eyes and ball of pain in my throat.
Feeling blocked, stuck in time and space. Here, I am, but he has moved on.
I hope I can find him there. When I too can become unstuck.
Well Done, Well Done
It’s not indulgent.
Look at where you are, what you have done. How you fit in and why it doesn’t matter.
How you can be still and quiet. How you feel it is the best thing ever.
You can do it, and you used to think that it was impossible.
You said it had to change; something good had to come from the terrible. You’re starting to do that, to feel it. You need to learn to hold it, own it and carry it.
Whatever the past, there is no profit, for anyone, of living there.
Look around, move forward and lift up.
On the Beach
White crested waves roll, urged inwards by a swirling onshore wind as snakelike surf uncoils, hissing, and soaking into ochre sand.
In the distance, jagged daggers of lightning plunge from a slate grey sky, presaging the grumble of thunder - gentle explosions rippling across an unsettled sea from which a rainbow rises up, connecting water and air.
And, in the air a flock of birds are framed, flapping, floating westward.
On the dunes
a crowd of crane reeds congregate, nodding their furry seed heads this way and that, surrounded by clumps of sacred sea daffodils, thrown up by recent rains.
Amongst these, zestful dogs range across the hillocks, encouraged by pungent sea scents, extinguishing the covert tracks of nesting loggerheads and greenbacks.
In the sea
You are gently rocked in the warm briny liquid, hovering above a ribbed plateau of rolling sand
that slides away into unseen, secret depths and perhaps,
you may sense an adult turtle suspended in space
below you, carefully scouting for safe access to shore.
Much later
a tiny, baby turtle crawls from sand into shallow water, sliding below buffeting waves and onwards
out towards an uncertain future.
And, when you leave,
water immediately floods your footprints, as if dissolving your memories.
But, from faraway, and in time,
these reflections will always take you back,
to the place that you love.
Alagadi Turtle Beach, Cyprus, October 2023.
The Gift
The knitted socks.
Handkerchiefs given one year and received the next.
The cardigan that didn’t quite fit
I worried about the gifts that I didn’t want and couldn’t return.
How trivial this all seems now.
With my son’s death, I have come to the painful understanding that he has given me a gift. More than any other I have received, I didn’t expect it and didn’t want it. But I have it now and cannot return it. It is beholden upon me, for my sake as well as his, to use it as well as I can.
This gift, is an awareness of mindfulness, the gift of living in the present and, as best as I can, appreciating life (and death) for what it really is.
Through this gift, his gift, my overriding intention over the last four years has to been to hold my son in my intention, attention, and attitudes.
His life, his death, and his memory.
Rory Hammond. Born 21st April 1998.
And finally, a poem about me by the very generous Philip Cowell.
For the wonderful Nicholas Hammond
There once was a man called Nick Hammond
Who kindly helped people examine
The ongoing now
With a great sense of wow
And how everything could be reimagined.