January challenges: small stones and comfort zones

 

 

Carol A. Stephen

Day 22

sounds for a Sunday morning

clock tick and fridge hum
the rhythmic shush of shovel on snow
muted by a closed window
the slosh of slush against car wheels
the quiet when everything pauses to breathe

 

I had a successful result this week with my week One effort, the submitting of two poems to a contest, Poetry for the End of the World.  I was among the six finalists. I attended the fundraiser for VERSeFest, Ottawa’s new Poetry Festival, and read my poem, The Walking-Off Place in the End-Time, along with the other finalists. Although mine didn’t win, all six of the finalists’ poems were placed into a tube and then into a weather balloon and at 10 p.m. E.S.T. last night, the balloon was released. Off it sailed up into the sky. Destination the End of the World, or…? Doesn’t matter, really. What fun!

As for this week’s challenge, I am still working on lightening up and trying to find some balance rather than obsessing about things.  I have had some weight gain over the holidays, so this week I have been making a good effort to avoid chocolate and cookies (and cakes, and pies, and fudge and….!)  I have done reasonably well at that, other than a small treat last night while having dinner out with a friend. But I watched my portions, so I am not counting that as bad.

Stone 21 noticing lack of balance

How easy the distraction is
my brain chatters to itself
in four directions, I imagine
a computer search, files
scrolling up the screen
too quick to read or stop
this flow. This is the source
of both poem and ponder.
This is my well of wish and worry.

Today I see a different need.
Perhaps Zen practice, or Gestalt therapy.
Something to slow down my brain,
something to give me balance.

A cold stone for Day 20


a morning of small cold thoughts
outside the temperature minus 19 C
inside only 17
furnace doesn’t hum his usual tune
brain hums one worry after another

the 18th and 19th stone: the minds one cat and one poet

Day 18

I took my own Internet blackout break in not posting to WordPress yesterday.
I could have joined their protest, but the banner version was a bit too easy to miss, while the full blackout version seemed more for U.S. citizens who could send mails to their local representatives.  So, I just didn’t post at all.

That means today, I have two small stones to write.

small attentions

a small device for measuring
hums an unfamiliar tune, my cat
stops in his kitty-paw path
along my desktop, eyes fixed
upon this curiosity. His gaze
is steady, but as I watch
his eyes move, a small motion
not  quiver but shiver,
a shimmer of movement
so swift, almost invisible,
his small attention a deep
and thorough meditation
before his body loses tension,
relaxes into his usual pose
of inward-facing cat.

Day 19  messy desk, messy mind

under the paper and pens
the notebooks and journals
post-it notes and crossed-out drafts
poems are waiting to be birthed
a marvelous mess of words and metaphor

Carol A. Stephen