The Rizland Tea Rooms

Dear —-

We’re so much smaller than the ocean. We’re so much smaller than the skies. People forget that too often. But we walk in between, and know whose blue is which. That’s a good start, and a good trajectory. We know the direction of tears.

My Quiet Corner at the Temple

Daybreak started at sunset, and the light was dampened as it bled out of time’s left eye. I was drifting away with some strangers’ replicas overstaying their welcome in the repeating nightmare which was keeping awake my self-in-dream. The summoning of a heavy species of morning urged scenes to fastforward and break free in another state (and was it a wake?). In the wake of the circumstances an entire civilised set of habits was experiencing a six-month dimness. Calling it winter would have been an understatement. But I felt safe there, I could think while history was just resting and shutting up (and down).

The sky within

The eye, only an eye left
watching winters, turning and
returning – I remember loneliness:

it used to speak, whisper,
shout, nag. Now it just watches
like a stopped clock with unmoving
hands, like an eye turned within
it looks completely whitened

out. Blank, gives space to
clouds, moods, skies, you.

The Morning Watch

Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)

O JOYS! Infinite sweetness! with what flowers
And shoots of glory, my soul breaks and buds!
                  All the long hours
                  Of night and rest,
                  Through the still shrouds
                  Of sleep, and clouds,
              This dew fell on my breast;
                  O how it bloods,
And spirits all my earth! hark!  in what rings,
And hymning circulations the quick world
                  Awakes, and sings!
                  The rising winds,
                  And falling springs,
                  Birds, beasts, all things
              Adore Him in their kinds.
                  Thus all is hurl’d
In sacred hymns and order; the great chime
And symphony of Nature.   Prayer is
                  The world in tune,
                  A spirit-voice,
                  And vocal joys,
              Whose echo is heaven’s bliss.
                  O let me climb
When I lie down!    The pious soul by night
Is like a clouded star, whose beams, though said
                  To shed their light
                  Under some cloud,
                  Yet are above,
                  And shine and move
              Beyond that misty shroud.
                  So in my bed,
That curtain’d grave, though sleep, like ashes, hide
My lamp and life, both shall in Thee abide.

Here to be

Two hands
intertwine and mould
the morning, it’s an easy

dance if you know
each other’s light –
where it touches, how

it tickles objects
but also shared breath
and gives them depth.

One hand on heart
other on hearth.