Down By River, Dec 20

Photo Peter Reason

Still and dark
Cold and quiet
Just one star.

I fumble for the kissgate latch
pray for “All my Relations” 
follow the feel underfoot
along the invisible path
“Walking the Green Earth”.

What’s this old man doing, wandering about in the dark?

You ask about beauty
I tell you, “Right here”. 
A quiet, cold beauty
             River a highway of light 
             blackness of the shadows
             trees rise against the sky
             skeletal reflections on the water
             house lights on the hill
             and this dark, quiet wildness.

Am I settled in this still silence 
Or waiting for something to happen?
No birds move, nor mammals 
scarcely a sound.
Nothing to do
except eat my slender breakfast.
But when I've drunk my tea and eaten my mince pie, what then?
What do I sit with?

Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. 
Form is precisely emptiness and emptiness precisely form.
Or, as the ferryman whispered in Siddhartha’s ear, “Om”.

A quarter past seven. 
a just-about-pink in the east.
Suddenly, I can see my feet,
the texture of the bank as it drops away from me,
the loom of the bridge. 
Jackdaws chattering now, a few ducks
a hint of brown in the trees
ripples on the water.

I rise to leave
Give thanks – “All my Relations”.
Walking back across the now-visible path
I turn to watch colour spread across the sky.

1. ‘Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Form is precisely emptiness and emptiness precisely form’ is one rendering of the The Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra. See eg Dr John Crook’s talk to the Bristol Chan Group

2. Hesse, H. (1951). Siddhartha (H. Rosner, Trans.). New Directions Publishing Company.