During my meditation this morning, the house was quiet. The Monday garbage collection had not yet begun. The dog napped. The candles burned in their usual silent flames. I wish I could report that my mind was still. Alas, no. Yet, it was a surprise when the chime sounded. Learning to meditate regularly, like most undertakings, requires patience and perseverance. I remember a dream I had years ago of a still pool of water, not very big, with a beautiful light shining upon it. It is an image that brings me peace.
I love this poem and I love that it showed up this morning.
All Down the Lake
It wasn’t so much that the dinner conversation
had bored me as that I was simply tired
of words, particularly my own. So afterwards
I slipped away and followed the path down
to the boathouse, where I sat in a lawn chair.
The lake was perfectly still, the inky hills
on the far shore mirrored between two skies
of deepening blue and streaked with clouds
tinged with the last pink. At first I didn’t notice
the strange sounds, then didn’t recognize them
as human: the faint, distorted, jumbled voices
of dinner conversations all down the lake’s
mile length, sliding across the glossy surface
only to rebound off the shore and swirl together
in a confusion of murmurous babble.
Now and then a weird inflection or wild laugh
broke free from the hubbub and twisted up
like a bottle rocket left over from the Fourth.
It was a relief and, really, a pleasure
not to make out the words, or even the coherent
intonations of sense-making and just focus
on the hallucinatory, far-off din. Then slowly,
as the dinner parties one-by-one dispersed,
the voices dropped away until only
a few remained—less alien-sounding now—
then none, the lake itself a mind
that had finally quieted its chatter
just as the first stars glimmered into being
and a bullfrog started calling, deep and steady.
~ Jeffrey Harrison
of words, particularly my own. So afterwards
I slipped away and followed the path down
to the boathouse, where I sat in a lawn chair.
The lake was perfectly still, the inky hills
on the far shore mirrored between two skies
of deepening blue and streaked with clouds
tinged with the last pink. At first I didn’t notice
the strange sounds, then didn’t recognize them
as human: the faint, distorted, jumbled voices
of dinner conversations all down the lake’s
mile length, sliding across the glossy surface
only to rebound off the shore and swirl together
in a confusion of murmurous babble.
Now and then a weird inflection or wild laugh
broke free from the hubbub and twisted up
like a bottle rocket left over from the Fourth.
It was a relief and, really, a pleasure
not to make out the words, or even the coherent
intonations of sense-making and just focus
on the hallucinatory, far-off din. Then slowly,
as the dinner parties one-by-one dispersed,
the voices dropped away until only
a few remained—less alien-sounding now—
then none, the lake itself a mind
that had finally quieted its chatter
just as the first stars glimmered into being
and a bullfrog started calling, deep and steady.
~ Jeffrey Harrison
First Sip
image: Redwood City, 2015. I don't remember taking this photograph, but I was happy to come across it this morning. It may not be a photograph of a lake, but it does speak of expansiveness.
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