amorphous burden – a meditation

I am posting this (a wee bit late in the day) to Poets United 'Midweek Motif' prompt of: Peace.  It is inspired, by a poem I came upon, some time ago called ‘Meditation’.  The poem, I am referring to, was not actually a ‘meditation’ - but rather a quiet celebration of the act of meditating and the peace that flows from it.  However, it got me thinking.  I had only ever meditated using a mantra.  But could I meditate to words – simple words – that might induce a peaceful state of ‘letting go’.  I began with the color blue because I find blue a very calming – sea and sky – tranquil hue that settles my mind, more than any other.  I thought the piece should have a chant-like quality and also an ‘envisioning’ aspect to it.  I have given it a few ‘trial runs’, reciting the words in my mind, and I did find it helpful.  At any rate, it was an interesting experiment and probably still a work in progress, I think, so I will be interested in comments.  

amorphous burden 

turn to feathers 

flutter skyward 

azure ~ blue

scatter … in white 

cirrus clouds 

and evanesce to  

cyan ~ blue

amorphous burden

turn to water 

turn to soft tears 

lightest ~ blue

fall to oceans

fall in raindrops 

vanish in
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ the turquoise ~ blue

photo:  Meditation – W. Bourke

© 2017 Wendy Bourke

like tiny pixels in the distance

the sea breezes were ebullient and the air was the fragrance of living … 
the paddle wheeler's top deck, rocked to the beat of a wordless rhyme … 
and though, a chuckle escaped me … my embarrassment was shushed by the 
exhilaration of being in that lightness of spirit that transcends physicality and travails

sometimes, when I laugh, I sound like her …. and the world shutters, into
a fleeting hallucination … for a moment … a wisp of illusion … for she has passed … 
I carry a lot of such bits and pieces inside of me … inside my soul, perhaps 
… as fragile as a buttercup, plucked by a stumbling toddler in wilting sunshine … 
bittersweet – most of them, more sweet than bitter – many of them ancient –  

they erupt, extemporaneously, like effervescing bubbles in seltzer … shooting, 

often enigmatically, up from the bottom of the glass, to consciousness of mind … 

minute elements of time burst free … sparks of detail from my life’s journey, in vivid recall

from my perch on the boat’s roof deck, I watched as two billowing white sailboats

moved towards each other … and then ... the one that was nearer to me, eclipsed 

the other … and then ... they passed … one looked to be heading back to port …

the other … off into the ocean … smaller … smaller … like tiny pixels in the distance

photos:  Sailboats in the Strait of Georgia – W. Bourke 

© 2017 Wendy Bourke  

if only wishing made it so

we had walked the town for hours passed places from our past
– where we had lived, for a time – many carefree years ago

and though – much had fallen – under wrecking ball and hammer
or been locked in a malevolent time travel spell … whammied …
in hodge podge incongruity, from fragrant bistro and tearoom
into humdrum burger franchise and running-shoe emporium,
memories were held there, still, waiting to be unclasped to float
– dreamily around us – from brick and mortar and from the green

we had rambled in the flora-in-the-gardens and by the shops:
passed the bakeries and cafés and art and plant and flower kiosks
that conjured forth and painted vivid colored reminiscences …

and when, at last, we rested, treating ourselves to ‘a cold one’,
sipped in ocean breezes … we were in a very good place …
a place that all ancients recognize when they have the great fortune
to stumble upon it – for it rare and rarely can it be sought and found

“I wish that we could stay here,” I whispered, longingly

he looked at me in that aporetic arched eyebrow way, with which
he responds to new additions to my ever burgeoning ‘wish panier’ –
the man, having thrown in with a wisher-woman – me – he had,
over the years, acquired a conciliatory expression of doubt tinged support:
as I wished for challenges to be surmounted and vexations to end;
for the dying to get well and powerful storms to come to nothing;
for bombs to never have been invented; for famines to cease … for the world
to get right – burdens and banes – wished into a momentary serenity

“if only wishing made it so” – he patted my hand then, as is his way – “if only ...”

notes:  A recent overnighter to Victoria, B.C.

le panier (Fr.) - a wicker basket (that often holds bread)

photos:  Outdoor Café (taken from an outdoor café overlooking the Victoria Harbour) – W. Bourke
Harbour Watching – W. Bourke

© 2017 Wendy Bourke  

the delphiniums were beautiful

it is long ago, now ... since ... the first time I wandered 
through this garden paradise ... mom was with me ... 
‘taking a break’ from dad ... having left him, 
thousands of miles away, to visit me and shed her words 
like watery snow flakes falling, willy-nilly, on a picnic 

– marring moments, but not amounting to much –

my parents ... the most tempestuous of all marital combos:

THEY who cannot let anything roll off them …

we walked together along the gray stone paths

that skirted lush green and blossom bursts: 

a paradoxical backdrop I thought, then and again today,

upon which to jabber on about 'that-which-makes-you-crazy' –

when, she suddenly stopped, bit her lip, and looking 

slightly embarrassed, stared into my eyes and murmured:

“the delphiniums are beautiful” … “so beautiful” ...

just as:  the garden sighed ... I know I felt the garden sigh …

a great melodious leafy letting-go-flutter-of-a sigh … 

that rippled from the tree tops, tickling the grasses 

and gusting, in tiny tumbles, through the versicolor sea

of flowers and ferns and shrubs and bushes

“perhaps, I’ll plant delphiniums, when I get back home” ...

 she smiled, then, I remember – she had a lovely smile –

 “I’ll ask your dad to give me a hand.” 

photos:  taken at Butchart Gardens (just outside of Victoria, BC) on a recent trip - W. Bourke 

© 2017 Wendy Bourke