on turning seventy three

 

alone in my hut

[no one here to invent me]

eyeballing emptiness

 

Rainbow Lorikeet hovering by Trevor Andersen

 

Seventy three missions

around the sun and not

one thing of worldly value

to show for it.

 

No savvy safety-nets:

investment portfolios, insurance policies,

plans A, B and C.  I walk the way

of not-knowing and wonderment.

 

Lofty notions of enlightenment, bliss,

exalted understanding have no buyer here;

I’ll take this uninvited, serene,

free and priceless fulfilment.

 

See, today I heard the air sing

as it danced through the rainbow wings

of a Lorikeet suspended

in space.

 

Today I watched cumulonimbus

massing in the west, those

sculpted edges alive with flaming gold

as the sun went down.

 

Tonight, as dusk fell

bringing cool relief to the sweating forest

I giddily inhaled a draught

laden with night-scented Jessamine.

 

And it is enough. Whatever may lie ahead

for this beloved bag of bones

the simple sensuous joy of being Presence

 

is enough.

 


Rainbow Lorikeet hovering. Photograph by Trevor Andersen.


the sea was grievous grey

Photo - Tropical Dusk by Carol Brandt

 

the sea was grievous grey
under a sky of blushing coral

and as I breathed these hues
they morphed, and I saw

sky and sea melt seamlessly into
a monotone quietude of greyness

I stopped in my tracks, my toes alerted
to the change underfoot – it was as if

compelled by some cosmic cue
the teeming sand crabs had disappeared

my antennae reached beyond the sigh
of the wavelets’ lapping and heard

the chorus of feathered critters fall
silent for the night

I stood with held breath, seduced, suffused,
by the immensity of the moment
wondering
how fulfilment could possibly
be fuller
than in an earth-instant
truly noticed

 


Photo credit – another stunner from my friend Carol Brandt. A different beach; same tones, same mood.