WHAT IS TIME?

My death waits in the trailer park
in the debates about life's meaning in the dark
in the fear of old age not paying the gas meter
in the lusts fading into memory of things sweeter

my death lies in relinquishing all life
my children now grown, my recollect wife
and the songs we sang within the cups of youth
my death lies in his final truth

and yet not my death for some part continues
though I am gone to dust and drear previews
of eternity light and still to come
bright shining star that beckons home...

I am here on the cusp of death coming close by day
and yet truth on the handle would bid me say
what is really here too big I fear in its import?
None. Death have I known too often when life cut me short..

and so no apprehension on the final bound
death constant with me,this have I found.

The Mountain Stream

Adapted from the Welsh of Ceiriog(John Hughes)

mountain stream shining with pebbles
as it falls to the valley below
a whisper of song along the rushes reveals
if i were as the stream,oh were it so!

the mountain heather all a blossom
longing comes when I gaze on them
I want to rest on the hills again
in the heather and the breeze that comes there

the tiny birds who name the mountain
free flight in the racy air
from one side to the other and again
that I took wing like a bird!

a mountain son I find myself
far from home seeking poetry to console
where the mountains hold my heart whole
the tiny birds and the heather that peeps out...

My fair haired lad

adapted from an anonymous Gaelic song of the eighteenth century

Oh my fair haired lad
You have made me sad...

young I was when loving you
with hair flowing, you
from my kindred taken
they gave me home, I have forsaken

curled hair ringleted
bonny as any contemplated
my love secure in depth
of closeted chamber in my flesh

head like golden streams of hair
all my choice was there
if only you had chosen to refrain
coming to the tavern to sup there

winter was early when I fell first
in love as I must tell it
my own dearest wish you were
but you ceased from following your girl

last year I had a footstep
it sounds heavy now not laughter as I had
music sad I hear the tune yet
and I am full of it deep sorrowing for the lad

oh my fair haired lad
you have made me sad
my trouble lies in me here
and sadness around me all my cares
lad of the lovely hair
sorrow is now my share

I woke this morning in a negative frame of mind,after yesterday thinking I had come to some understanding.

Thought is conditioned. As we watch the breath rising in our bodies another breath comes to matcH it. In,out ...the conditioned cycle of response. One inhalation leads to the next.

So too thoUght.if I think something do these thoughts rise because of conditioning? Yes my thoughts of how wonderful past days might have been have arisen because maybe the winter isn't there just now. My thoughts of summer gone are dependent on winter coming.

I bring up mindsets. I am,say, angry or depressed because have known these things before and they have left residue in my mind . Therefore it is easy to recreate them. Perhaps the residues of joy and positivity are less well implanted and so do not rise so readily. Yet discipline is all. We do not have to go with the anger,the depression. We breathe into it to learn of its true nature. If I think sad,I am sad though there may not be sadness around me.

These things have I become and these things I undo. They do not define me. For myself does not exist except as a conventional tag to fit into everyday reality more easily. Yesterday I understood these things and everything was peaceful

So when I wake and the thrum of a dark cloud is there with its repetitive drone, have I undone that which I have started ? No. it is rather that I become aware of just how busy my mind is...yet in this blessing ...for in knowing what's there we move back to the point of concentration and try again until balance reasserts.

It is not the contempaltion of karma that is my tyranny. It is my mind. Bless us all as we learn to tame this inner tiger.

Woke I early

Adapted from the Scots Gaelic of Mary Macpherson

Woke I early on a May morning there
A little sadness was in my heart
The cattle lowing in their belly I heard
And the sun rising on the higher part
Of all the mountains around me lofty.
The night was taken off by the ray of day
And high above landscape a lark songs came to me
And youth returned in memory on my way

To remember what things did I then .
Some things I could not recall accurately
The winter work, and traipsing to weddings when
Peat guided us, no lamp there for me
In the song and the dances of lively youth.
It is away and sad the lonely valley now seems
When I look at Andy's house gone to ruin
Recall how young I was in remembered things

As I walked each high hill and low valley
Where once to fold the cows I did, I had
No cares then. Those happy young men were taken from me
Our natives driven without any claim, clearance made,
Where I used to clip the corn with joy in my heart
Rushes molded to the earth the expanse of the moor land...
If only I could again see the houses rebuilt in finer part
If only lightness of heart to hold again in my hand...

Simplicity and/or contentment?

Is sex better than meditation? Possibly. Is meditation better than sex? Possibly. Both contain the possibility of uniting, harmonising our psychic energies.
One of precepts as we learn to explore Buddhist teaching is the third precept to refrain from unskilful sexual practice. This is not to deny the joy of it or its inclusion in a healthy lifestyle. Rather it is about learning where our own limitations lie…and what can impact on others by actions taken. If it feels good do it may easily be taken as anything goes and such license may convince us of the joy seemingly implicit in hedonism. Yet celibacy I have found too difficult an option.
If it feels good and it helps, it may be ok to entertain the juncture that when love calls we should follow and love is certainly beyond morality. That the Buddha teaches clearly.
But I am a westerner, in part brought up on romantic diet. The bigger picture is always important. It is skilful to know where we are at in regard to this third precept, not to gain enlightenment…that might too might be a craving…but to have principles that minimise the discontented life and point us in the direction of a happier one.
I love is a simple definition of myself…what I do with that love is mine… yet I would hope to be guided by wisdom. Simplicity is the key and love itself is simple. It asks nothing.
I am working out my response to this third precept myself. Peace to all on the journey!

Song to the Future Love

I told my love all my heart
And poor thinking, thought he'd go away
He understood the discomfort of the smart
And kissed for a brighter day

He said "Never hold the notion unclear
That life difficult keeps us rent asunder
The promise of gold still holds good here
And forever calm after thunder"

Is love that never run smooth the lie that holds
Our mind when our heart runs too glad deeper?
He told me that brass must turn to gold
Obstacles dissolve into inevitable forever

The course is run through daily division
And yet the ties cut through even more certainty
That love will tame even this unruly sun
To beacon home all metal made of constancy

I shall run as fool if needed, but not fool
For heart not roaming from native grass.
I am beyond love and still in love. The rule
Is broken...

But not the loveliness in which my metal is cast...

HAVE JUST TRIED TO SUBMIT SOMETHING AND IT HAS AUTOMATICALLY GONE INTO DRAFT. IT TELLS ME THE DRAFT IS KEPT IN THE BACKOFFICE. ANY IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS AND HOW I MAY RETRIEVE THE FILE? JOHN

Joplin is on the radio. The scream of her blues,the descent into rock and roll madness, point me to consider the art form. The screech of her voice captures her moment...and I think to myself...what is blues?. Holliday said the blues ain't nothing but a good man gone bad. One might say that of theatrical tragedy. For me the blues is a tWelve bar or an eight bar of urban poetry, words supported by a prevalent musical structure. One can tire of the sameness of the structure at timeS but when one breaks out one can see the rightness of it, a statement of personal angst, a wail of predicament...the blues ain't nothing but a good man gone bad. Perhaps by identifying with the message we can learn of our common humanity...

THE fourth Noble Truth is principally about how we can make our lives better,how we can develop ease and confidence in our approach to things. Its ultimate aim in providing a methodology is of course enlightment but I believe enlightenment follows when you just live as best you can with the advice offered in this truth without becoming too hooked on the concept of nirvana. That can be heavy and leave one living too much in hope or fear.

Evrything about the method is based on direct experience. Putting things to the test.

The fourth Noble Truth has three basic components,understanding,ethics and reflection.

Right view is the basis of our understanding. Chance is that if develop negative states of mind then our reality will reflect that.

Yet is it is not easy to replace skilful approach where there has been unskilful mindsets. Our conditioning predisposes each of us differently to things we have to face...thus reflection or meditation. How can we know what is there is if we are not prepared to look?

Ethics is basically a soUnd way of relating to the world so that we may develop a sounder way of relation. Thus right speech, right action are indicated. This can all sound very simplistic and in essence it is. It is our habitual mindset that would undo the simplicity of approach

TakE care everyone...I find the methodology hard myself because of the conditioning of my life pattern, my personal energy, my history. Yet it doesn't deny the truth of the approach though it may be that it becomes theoretical, rather than something we put in to action. I have to remind myself everyday to think on the aplication of these things...with Metta...that noble search for compassion to myself and others which can be so elusive...

we go on...Such a journey! What a journey!

Bilingual Poem

Gwrid unwaith o garwr a ges
Ond dwywaith yma cymhleth
er nad yw'r cariad i minnau.
Sut caf i lwybr am ddryllio'r cadwynau...
eto mae o'n dal sillaf serchus
ac adduned mai fi yw'r un, er iddo bell

Ymrwymo naeth i frechferch sy'n pwyso
priodasfab perffaith rhwng ei breichiau hithau
ond ailadrodd mae o ddydd i ddydd y cariad ganddo
cariad i mi heb i ninnau gael ein cydio

Drachefn i'th garu o hyd ac o hyd
er waetha gormesgariad rhyngon ni
cymeryd eto dy loywlaw y bydda i
a throi at yr wybren hynt 'y nghofid i

Once there was blushing in him left
but now time is doubly complex
there is not the love I craved
what road to take to smash the chains?
He keeps words syllabic tender
I am his one though kept asunder

He has promised to wed a pockled girl
to husband her in arms opened there;
but repeats daily of his enduring love
love that strikes to continue with me a fool

Still to love from day to day
with oppressive passion our share,
I will again his shining hand take
turn to the heaven with sorrow's path there

I have said that from Gotama's point of view,there is dissatisfaction in things and there is a cause to these things:ignorance and craving.
Ignorance here is quite simply that we do not know what reality really is,only what we deem it to be.
Craving is wanting things to be other than what they are. We become attached to ideas, places, people,events and this causes pain.
Indeed when confronted with anything we can have three responses.
We like it-which may lead to attachment of it(craving)
We don't like it-which may lead to pushing it away(aversion)
The third point is that we may have no response(be neutral,indifferent)
Although with these things there is the level of degree,reflection should show us that these responses clearly do operate in regard to things we are presented with.
1. The first Noble T...That suffering or dissatisfaction exists
2. The second Noble T...There is a cause to dissatisfaction i.e. not seeing things as they really are(ignorance)
3.The third Noble T...there is an exit from dissatisfaction by beginning to change viewpoint.

Nirvana,enlightenment are ponderous ideas. We should stay with curiosity and our ability to reflect on things. We cannot escape life. It is not intended that we do so.
In my next blog-the fourth Noble Truth- I will hint(I can only hint)at the methodology the Buddha advises we use to move away from ignorance of the way of things;we mould a reality view by the idea of a finite,separate self.

Be courageous on your path my friends. It is largely intuitive. Different for each of us but inherently we are all the same;we are One. Keep well.

No sleep to come to eyeline tonight
Only tears that fill together
Doleful wind that continues without respite
At my window moaning, soft, low,tonight

Now breaks a sadder voice and weeps
Tears heavy with the sound
On the pane the teardrops glisten and steep
In the utter distress this sorrow keeps

Why come you then wind to moan
At my glass known but to me?
Tell me did you lose too a love you'd known
Who loved you tenderly?

From the Welsh of John Morris Jones

The second Noble Truth points to the dissatisfaction that is in all things, not as a nod to pessimism but as a reflection on the instability of things.
It is a human need to analyse ,to make sense of what has happened to us. Thus causation is a key factor in the way we determine and experience our story, our personal history. We may think that if understand how something has happened, we may be able to change the outcome in a future setting.
What is good is to be enjoyed as it lasts. The second Noble Truth may seem like a cloud that blocks understanding for we don’t see things as they clearly are. We are a victim of our own viewpoint.
What then is the second truth?
Well it is that we are to believe our dissatisfaction to be the whole story. Yet this is only because our human failings place us at the centre of things. This second truth asks us to entertain the idea that we are not separate from ongoing change but are part of its ebb and flow and are connected to every other part of the Universe in that ebb and flow…
We are dissatisfied with the seeming flux of things. Our ego-based view would buy us into the myth of solidity and security. Thus we buy into discrimination-and set up what is called, by classical Buddhist terms, the two notions of aversion and attachment. More of this later.

The second Noble Truth is that there is a cause to dissatisfaction. Nothing lasts permanently but only within differing times of duration. To cling to the idea of fixity produces pain…

Be content on your journey all my friends! To realise we are all one is both privilege and a great adventure.

jESUS let me sleep soundly

Adapted from the Welsh of Cynan(Albert Evans Jones)

Jesus let me sleep so soundly
for my soul is racked and turned
I cannot rest here while around me
dark hours come and no rest is earned

Oh that a gentle breeze could come to me
from my mountain far over there
as if i heard it just now whispering sweetly
to listen to the days when I had no care

Gentle lulling slow,delicious
a half keyed in,sad ,lovely tune
as sweet nothings from a sweetheart
caught in love's sigh and smile I knew

Song old current of Talcymerau stream
as it passes the sweetest gorse branch
as if murmuring our nightly prayer dream
the silent stars are candles now

Oh that a gentle breeze could come to me
from my mountain far over there
as if I heard it just now whispering sweetly
of better days when I had no cares

The first Noble truth is that there is suffering...that it exists, in its everyday meaning of that which hurts, is true;it is a given in life.
But two words obfuscate the message. The truth is noble because it may not be a truth we contemplate every day. The second word is suffering which may be more accurately rendered by the word dissatisfaction.
To those who are satisfied, this truth is, on the surface, not applicable and Buddha would say go for that which is satisfying,seek to retain the good. But it is a truth that none of us can deny that things are in change all the time,some lasting a long while,some of very short span. It is this change that causes our human dissatisfaction,our existentialist struggle. That much is always true...that there is change and attachment to change brings dissatisfaction. Ou sont les neiges d'antan?
Nirvana can sound heavy,Zen,can seem as a conceptualised anathema. But start where we are ...the first truth is that of dissatisfaction, because although at different levels, and with differing speeds,everything is change.
Good luck on your journey all my friends!

The Losing of the Lassie

How our children change

Swift grow into breasts
That lose the name of...

My paternal care forever.

Translocates without my firm hand,
Leaves behind satchel,jotter.

Rosy cheek declines.
Her carriage plumpens. I,father,

No place in this migratory thing.

Lovely daughter go!
Far beyond my child's jewel
Dolls and locks of hair.

Childhood becomes myth.
Adulthood arduous.
Angel flows above you,
About you,be happy!My daughter!

Memory is already stronger than transition.

And redirects.
In my garden always roses

As she leaves behind forever...

Yet my picture is
She is still here,touched,spun
Like gossamer

A perfect child at five years old,

A girl forever in glass I hold

Yet hope I am sensible enough to hold her as woman too
As our children change.

Verses to the Harp

Adapted from the Welsh of William Thomas

Place gilt gold image of finger just a while to the harp
so that abrasion of anger and hurt may flee
and measured mead in music for pleasure be
that which can root out angry,vexing company

For melody of music that keeps to the string
many subjects played without count of number
I'll keep to the path of harper's tune forever
so rich it is its woven tapestry together

The concordant string is the truest song, the suggestion
of most trebled note and supported unison chord.
What benefits issue when in serious mode the descant affords?
Yet her voice warmth cheers to the hundreds around her hall

Elegy for a friend
To Trevor who left us 26/07/08

The passing sun might still give crystals to the day
But oh it is the moon half blanketed now
As clouds move across its saddened and yet wiser face
The spirit of my friend has ascended,up and how

Lovely his flight from the world of pain and I
Still in fond remembrance of all we shared delight
In elegy of becoming see the angel illumination bright
Stitching his forever face to the eternal sky

He is not dead for how can he be so when he
That befriended many through thick division in this world
Thought not of his own suffering too great to be
That could not give to those his friends a treasure revealed?

Bless you my friend in the forever gaze of those gone before
I shall not forget the downpour of his grace
And twenty years hence when I too am undone by life underscored
Breathe my last recollection of this earthly place

I shall shake your hand again my friend there too
With the welcome of supreme coming home, give my thanks and joy
And know that what is lived and shared in this passing through
Will live and join in friendship that time just cannot cloy

The background to this poem is that I have just heard of the death of my friend of over twenty years. Poetry is consolation and delight. God bless Trevor...till we meet again,rest in the God you loved so well.

Love's thief

Swift these sickening words eight times I have travelled
to those forests, my course for nothing revealed
as a crazed one, many a while in the open air
I forgot the hearth of domesticity there.
But easier for me, before any hint of dawn ray
may I find her there in the woods, long to stay
lovingly for the sweet prize of a girl's touch...
walks the lover to his distant love in the wood.
I become disheartened, and the sun of the forest
once dripping sweetest cups of wine is not mine.Yet
ah despoil then!they view me from the village, fleet
of foot to the lovely girl in that land of hurting meets,
as caught in the nets of dispute my illicit tryst
that greyfaced commentary from the villagers makes me thief.
I do not shun the brighter face of the daytime now
not a cheap thief to take a mans horse,his pony mine now,
only one who steals the girl's heart in the wooded place
no black stallion or ram of worth will I take.
I am thief only of her maiden's awaiting virtue there
not thief from the millers fold but thief of lady's hair;
not one who rips gold coins from the too possessive hands.
Keep your cattle your wealth to be will not be released and
this appelation I take fully into my definition then
that never stole I anything with hoofs rattling from honest men.
All it was that I took was but assignation of stolen part
that I took as I thieved only from a lady and my smarting heart.

Adapted from the medieval Welsh of Dafydd ap Gwilym in his poem Lleidr Serch

anonymous

It was as I was scrubbing
Under Cardigan bridge there
A beetle of gold my hand's share
And my true love's shirt grubby,
On horseback came a man to me
Shouldered wide, proud,swift, he
Enquired if I might sell
The shirt of the laddie I loved so well.
I declined, saying not for hundreds, to give hence,
Not even if the hills packed full of sheep and rams
Not even if the bales of hay were pulled away
By oxen full of power to cart away on such a day
Everything I held dear. Or if in cathedral
Of Dewi Sant, even then would I that thing I scrubbed well
Not for herb sweetened or distilled for fragrant smell,sell.
Not for any offer would I thus part
From the shirt of the lad that holds fast my heart

Dewi Sant=St David

my adaptation of an anonymous poem from the Welsh . fourteenth century poem I think...can be found in 'Canu Rhydd Cynnar' by t.h. parry williams published in 1932.

I have been working on an adaptation of this Piaf song. I may change this with time but at the moment I will leave it as it stands..for i think it captures some of the spirit of the original

Sky of blue that follows us around
And the earth is shaken to the ground
When you love me really love me I don't care
For the morning shines with glowing light
When your fingers wrap round to mine
When you love me really love me I don't care

I would go to the ends of the earth
Turn to blonde my brunette hair
If you want me to I would
I would unzip the moon
Steal a great fortune
If you want me to I would
Forsake this country mine
And friends of long term time
I would do anything you ask
Just to keep this love in grasp
If you want me to I would

If one day life severs all we have
I will follow though far you are my love
When death comes nothing matters, I choose to go above
We will have the full breath of eternity
In the depth of love's immensity
In heaven's blue all problems crushed
Do you believe we truly love my love?

God reunites all hearts that were enamoured once...

The song of love

Adapted from the French song by Edith Piaf Le Chant d'amour, which is largely autobigraphical. It tells of her love for the boxer Cerdan who died in a plane crash. The singer's only hope is that the lovers meet again after death ,in a better place.

If you'll listen long and listen well
My song I'll tell of love endured
Love welcomed in the throes of everyday
Two loves who gave their hearts away
If you'll listen long and listen well
A beautiful story I will tell
Then let me do it well

If you let me long relate, my heart will break
With the song of love
For two who loved find peace only above
Oh two who loved in maddest place
They did perish with sorrow the same
I cannot give their grief a name
Then let me sing, or my heart will break

But to those who found their love
Love known not of the everyday
They shall find a better way
In which their heart endures forever and a day
That I am sure that as I sing
That the lovers are united in everything
Then let me sing for them today

la la la la la la ....

Let me sing or my heart will break

Song of the Old Lovers

Freely rendered from the French of Jacques Brel

Of course these storms of love still rage
For twenty years and ever more
Of course we tried to turn the page
You put your cases in the hall
And I too to spread my wing
But in this house of peopled things
No cradle now to hold us...
Each article is the same
It speaks no word of change
And we hear the hurricane
We break, each away, from us

But oh my love my darling sweetheart
My most wonderful love,I know I'll love you
From the dawn til dusk
I love you I love you, as I must

We played this game together
Each ruse we took to hold us in
We had the stormy weather forever
The trap of keeping us held in.
From time to time it went askew
And then what did we do
But chase the other lover?
Was it just passing the time
Body passion to rejoice...?
It has taken some art to stay together
To become old and keep youth's pleasure

But oh my love my darling sweetheart
My most wonderful love I know I'll love you
From the dawn to dusk
I'll love you, as I must

And with the time that's left to guide us
Our vistas are full grey
And there's nothing to divide us
Though torment 's on its way
But still it makes no sense
To look for peace in all this grief
That trap is not of our asking
The mystery won't pull through
The tender war is still renewed
And the waters they are rising

But oh my love my darling sweetheart
My most wonderful love I know I'll love you
From the dawn to dusk
I will love you, as I must

A Game of Chess

She was my foreigner
and she was in part mine
little cups of Chablis
a French summer undone by lace and politics
the Left Bank
scrambled rooms
exits and happenings
the rain
La Gare du Nord

We played chess
on a long bed
tricks and pendants between long legs
she turned and said check mate
I went
in search of another sun
felt less wanted