Tag: contemplation

Untitled #1

Photo by Maria Orlova on Pexels.com

I first encountered you in ceilings,
in wallpaper patterns, their imagined shapes;
lying on beds with open books, with time,
with The Planets Suite as background.

You, who watched erstwhile friends
playing and laughing, cycling madly
along lanes of cow parsley and smoke,
through an old peeling window frame.

You are the same person still — alone;
free, yet unheard and misunderstood,
unwilling to think, or bend like the rest,

still staring but from double glazed glass,
thoughts blowing among trees,
within the space of this room

Copyright Francis 2021

Tangled Up in Zen — Artistcoveries (Reblog)

Life is crazy these days. Between a pandemic and politics, we’re living in a world of confusion and uncertainty. Emotions run high, spirits are low, and life as we once knew it is a thing of the past. No one knows for sure where we’re heading on when we’ll get there. Day after day my […]

Tangled Up in Zen — Artistcoveries

*Is simple living an art form?

‘Rain’ a Poem

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Contemplate the rain, this fleeting season,
changes I can do nothing about.
Sitting, watching, listening; the hanging drops
on vacant washing lines and leaves,
all testimony to nature,
that the laws of men may come and go,
yet eternal truths stand starkly before us:
Our choice to ignore.
The harder I try the less I get in return.
But the gentle rush of rain brings it back,
the raucous calls of crows
sitting in out in shedding trees;
the clutter of my mind
stands between what is me
and my self.

Copyright Francis Barker 2020

Poem ‘Sandalwood’

Santalum
Image via Wikipedia

 

The first warm wind of spring

whispered threats in his ear.

Not even blossom bedecking

knolls of the smoking temple

embraced by those steepening hills

could turn the colour of his mind.

“I can’t feel a part of this,” he said.

He watched her take a piece of bread

and a cloud passed before her eyes.

Neither his touch or choicest word

would have any effect

and no amount of wisdom exuding

from centuries of contemplation

could prevent him feeling alone.

Their minds would never mingle

like fresh sandalwood in mountain air.

All he saw was a set of blue irises,

statements of beauty

and perhaps an intent

 

poem © copyright df barker 2012

Haiku 2012 #2

soft indignation
flat third of a minor chord
world’s light in a cell

© copyright dfbarker 2012

*image based on a watercolour original, part of a reconstruction of a Benedictine Priory. This image is not necessarily to hint at the meaning of the haiku, although it could be one interpretation.