Poeming 3

                                         Ten Teachings of MaCushla

(dedicated to Sr. Theresa March, July 2017)

1. Sit completely still, wrapped in the arms of love, every morning for at least half an hour, and also at night if you can manage it.

2. Race around at least once a day - it energizes the whole body and the deep soul.

3. Sleep in the afternoon as well as most of the night. Get up early.

4. Be continually curious. Even familiar people and things show something new every day. Jump on it if you can.

5. Eat twice a day. Three times a day can make you lazy.

6. Sniff everything, very slowly. Let your nose teach you about what you perceive. Trust that.

7. When cold, find a heat source and roll over in its beams. Then fall into a nap.

8. Explore every blade of grass and new smell in your world, but never hurry unless something is running away from you, like a ball or a mouse or a frog.

9. Welcome every new person with curious sniffing or at least close examination.

10. Don't eat until you know you really want it. Pause and look away a few times before you take a bite.

11. Love everything and everyone, even the dog, though caution is recommended with her!

Summons

Everywhere

I write secret notes to myself –

scraps of rough-edged papers,

corners torn and

crooked edges

anything that will hold a word –

They are sticking out of books

or among counter-top debris,

sudden thoughts and quotes,

giving words to the soul’s summons

that day.

Enough

Mind flows like an incoming tide

towards new books, new courses, talks and teachers -

then Heart says "enough."

"I know all that is yours."

And the surging energy

like a tide

flows back into the dark sea.

My Children

I thought I had no children

but just now realized that all

my unruly feelings

all my petulant complaints

all my outbursts of impatient anger

and old, hidden rage -

they are all my children, just being born

so I can look on them with love,

hold and rock them

and offer them

for a transformation

I will never see. 

(10 April, 2016)

Since finishing "A Shadow of Bells", I have been writing smaller poems. They feel more like essences of something. I begin to share them here:

Prayer

Sometimes a prayer

passes through me

like a shoot of heat

a lightning bolt

a beam of shade.

I greet it and send it on

to do its unknown work.

(April 8, 2016)

Cat Bell

The tiniest sound, right out

on the edge of hearing

rolls and rings with hardly a disturbance

of the air.

Buying a cat bell in a pet store,

surrounded by the usual sounds

of commerce and verbal exchange,

the sound seems so minimal as to be

negligible, so insignificant

as to raise the question

“why bother?”

Yet, at home, attached to MaChree’s purple collar,

it signals his presence without intruding,

without offending,

and is an official messenger of relief.

Cats hide, and stay hidden,

frequently changing favourite places –

but one turn of the head and the cat bell announces

even the strangest hiding place.

I find now, in these later, busy years,

that my own life rings like a cat bell,

sounding from hiding places I thought I knew.

And just like finding MaChree

in some unfamiliar hiding place,

I find a new door to a new room

opening in my old, tired heart,

announced by a cat bell of singular,

almost imperceptible sound.

I have to listen to hear it.

I have to turn away from the push of necessities.

I have to stand still

inside if not out,

as if listening for far away, intriguing music

as the cat bell of my soul

calls me home.