Here and Not Here
(Walk 12, Farnham to Godalming, 9 March 2002.
Here and not here.
Not knowing the names of trees
Towering over our heads
Rocking in the ever-present wind
My not-knowing head is blocked
With an ever-present sniffle
Itís a tap that won't turn off.
Last night I attended a sitar concert in Wansted Library
Where the player encouraged us to lie down
And breathe deeply
So that when he finally began to play
The music made me cry
A spring that wouldnít turn off
The slender birches are now swaying rythmically
One this way, another that way
As the wind roars through
Yet sunlight is painting the mossy ground ..
As the stillness envelopes this
The mind dissolves
The story recedes
And this is good because
I want to be here but not here.
Earlier Ulrika said '..the flap of your backpack is undone,
it is flapping..' and I said '..that is symbolic
of part of me...' and she put her arm around my shoulder
and laughing said 'symbolic of which part?'
I knew not but said the term 'hanging loose' was preferable to 'flapping about..'
In this world it is hard to have a story
where some appear to live and some to die
But that in itself is a thought which comes, then goes
Earlier whilst most of the walkers went into a pub called the Donkey
Rachel and I scrambled up into a bit of woods,
from where we could be protected from the hailstones
and also sit in another dimension watching and hearing
the cars and other bits of civilisation.
We talked of how time is only relatively linear
That on some levels it is multi-faceted and everyone youíve ever known
Is not here, yet here
In the dimensionless, limitless unnameable pool
Which is beyond memory, beyond senses.
Going back to the sitar concert
There were flowers on the stage
And as we walked outside afterwards I saw
That someone had laid a long bunch
On the earth beside a tree
My arms already filled with blanket and cushions
I picked them up and Victoria said
'do you need help?'
'Well OF COURSE I NEED HELP'
everyone laughed but it was
the truest thing I'd said in weeks.
Back at home, the yellow flowers are arching, inscribing the space in the kitchen
I wonder if Julien, my lodger
Noticed them when he got up and went into the conservatory
For his first cigarette
I'd like to know what he thinks of when he sits there smoking.
They say eccentrics have an insatiable curiosity
To know what makes others tick
That's what keeps them happy
-because having a goal
is happiness-giving.
You know happiness and sorrow aren't opposites
Happiness includes everything
Awareness is the eye of the universe opening
So are these birch-trees its eyelashes fluttering?
The wind is now blowing a few rustling leaves about
People are beginning to stand up and walk on
We're ready to be here
But not here.