the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner
Tonight I vowed to pen a sonnet
Regardless of the question asked
I suppose I laid a hope upon it
A writing talent to be unmasked
“Why do you write?” arrives the question
What stirs my need to be verbose?
How am I stirred each scribing session?
Be it rhyme or be it prose?
There is a voice deep within
That clamours to be heard
Screen, pen and paper, to begin,
Offer the first distillery for a word.
So writing provides a platform for my voice
A plethora of words provide plenty of choice!
Bloganuary asks “What Brings You Joy in Life?”
Joy is a habit to be cultivated, in spite of its foreboding nature. I recently explored this phenomenon of reluctance to embrace joy and its fleeting nature due to the defence mechanism we employ to soften disappointment when it passes. It is also an aspect of yesterday’s reflection on “lost treasure” – the capacity to attend fully to the present moment in an awareness of an interconnected and purposeful universe.
So what Ode to Joy might I offer on this hot and sleepy summer’s day (the local indigenous season of Birak) in the outer suburbs of Perth, Western Australia?
Six senses of joy in this moment
The caress of the desk fan cooling my skin
The aftertaste of breakfast blueberries on my cereal
The waft of Vicks clearing my sinuses
The sight of an orderly mess on my desk, promising engagement with today’s projects
The peaceful sound of silence from a nearby highway
The instinct that “All is well, and all shall be well.”
We only need to open our eyes and pay attention. Bloganuary asks “What is a treasure that’s been lost?” Well, it’s all around us. You’ve opened your eyes now, but you still have to go searching.
Some will find clues in quantum physics – that realm of discovery that allows for random, invisible, and transcendent leaps of matter that are beyond the disciplines of empirical knowledge, yet enhance a sense of connection.
Others will find clues in kanyini, the ancient Aboriginal wisdom that describes the caring, supporting, nurturing and responsibility-evoking sense of inter-connectedness of people, land and home.
Perhaps it is in the Hebrew notion of shalom, the harmony of all in balance, embracing God, creation and humanity in all its expressions.
Those in my own faith tradition will find it in the Word that was in the beginning and became flesh and dwelt amongst us, thus awakening the invitation to awareness and participation in an ever-expanding adventure of inner and outer transformation.
The treasure’s not lost – it’s ever within our reach.
My earliest memory “tomato-throwing” episode last night must have prompted some dreamwork while I slept. I awoke this morning with the questions, “Why is this my earliest memory?” and “Is this a metaphor for something deeper?”
So I ponder how “chucking tomatoes from behind a fence” is a picture for a basic life stance. I am by nature a safe risk-taker with an ambivalent attitude to authority. Entering the vocation of Christian ministry following a period of Jonah-like resistance seemed to be consistent. However, I always resisted the trap of using the pulpit as a “coward’s castle.” On the contrary, it was a glass house where my vulnerability was often on display, knowing that when one speaks, one cannot avoid telling one’s own story, even, or especially, unconsciously.
I continue to be a questioner, a devil’s advocate, a swimmer against the tide, but often from within the safety of a faith community. I break shibboleths and can be somewhat iconoclastic, but only in an effort to reveal what is behind them.
In matters of mental health and social disparity, I threw tomatoes on behalf of many who were under my pastoral care.
A Minister of the Crown branded me “un-Australian” when my team helped refugees who were abruptly abandoned having been dumped as the result of a new and draconian government policy. I enjoyed the grim satisfaction that a tomato had landed.
Speaking out on TV in support of marriage equality had some tomatoes coming back over the fence, but I was incensed at how a politically inspired wedge had dragged churches into an unseemly polarising debate on pastorally sensitive matters.
Yes, some issues had me coming out from behind the safety of the fence, chucking tomatoes from no-man’s land. And I don’t really care much if the fence is there anymore, although I cherish my faith community.
I’m 73, and I still chuck tomatoes!
And here’s a pic of La Tomatino – it seems chucking tomatoes is quite acceptable in Spain!
Bloganuary today asks us to recall our earliest memory. This is a tough one because it is challenging to unravel the faculties with which I recall my early days. My cognitive function can regale you with stories of others’ memories of my first years. Some old Brownie snapshots have captured one or two images of my toddlerhood. Certain olfactory sensations – oranges, grass clippings, menthol – trigger something from the primordial depths of my being, as does the sound of the long blast of a ship’s deep throaty horn.
But the image that comes to mind is the enthralling sight and feel of a tomato plant. They grew in the raised front yard of the Semaphore flats we lived in. One morning, my three-year-old self delighted in plucking some ripe tomatoes and chucking them over the fence so they landed on the Esplanade footpath below. Apparently, I managed to decorate some poor lady’s Sunday best hat! I have no recall of the aftermath.
Whether this anecdote represents my earliest memory via lasting primary sensation or secondary oral sources – I like it and own it! They didn’t call me Dennis the Menace for nothing!
Bloganuary, to which I have sold my soul for a month, asks today’s audacious question, “How are you brave?”
In keeping with my primary goal of messing around with some words, let me offer a limerick:
Image by 0fjd125gk87 from Pixabay
One day a pilgrim did wonder
If writing poetry would just be a blunder
So he set out some prose
and it rhymed I suppose
thus blowing his fears all asunder.
When one feels the urge to write
Yet thoughts refuse to form
And sense retires in spite,
One takes such as the norm
And lifts the pen in hope
Of catching what flies by
While making wide one’s scope
And snaring what is nigh.
And so a poem is born
Raw and gasping for air
Lying lost and forlorn
Seeking to avoid despair
But now it’s here right on the screen
Behaving like it’s always been.
This is a Shakespearean sonnet using the line structure ABABCDCDEFEFGG
Last day of old year
Dawns with tired resignation
Holding her dry breath –
Desiring the calendar
to turn a shiny new page.
Image by NoName_13 from Pixabay
A tanka is an ancient form of Japanese poem – the first two lines describe an experience; the third is a kind of pivot that leads into the last two lines that express a deeper or more transcendental meaning. The strict syllable pattern is 5/7/5/7/7 (not always observed.)
You’re the voice, try and understand it
Make a noise and make it clear, oh, woah
– John Farhham
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says a referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament will be held before December 2023.
Image by Thomas Wolter from Pixabay
– ABC News
A friend observed that there’s not much point to a Voice unless someone is listening. We often don’t listen well because we are so intent on making our own Voices heard. We have our agendas and we are anxious that they not be lost. This in itself becomes an obstacle to listening.
Listening is intentional. It is also vulnerable. We may not like what we hear. Intentional listening may expose us to the need to make some changes – even abandon some precious notions of who we are. Listening is a courageous act.
Collect
O still small Voice, shout loud enough that I may hear Your wisdom through the cacophony of daily distraction, and that I may turn my attention to using my ears and mouth in the proportion with which they have been gifted to me.
Haiku
Listen to the Voice
Bulldozing old certainty
To make a new road
An urge to scrawl
Calls from deep within
Riding waves of ennui
Over the will to begin!
Something stirs
Through my fog of
Indolence
Carpe Diem!
Speaking in Haikus
To the one who sleeps and dreams
Prodding the poet
Cinquain
Precise, disciplined
Challenging, digging, questing
Pulsing, poetic, pulchritudinous, promise
Elucidation
Diamante
Ice-cold sharp
Sparkles entices attracts
Carbon baseball jewel carat
Shapes cuts slices
Clear lucid
Gem
A couplet to awaken the poet
Who is present but is pressed to show it.
To taste and see that all is well
And even to engage the sense of smell
One must listen to the inner voice
And touch imagination’s words of choice
