Just a Little More Gently

In my continuing quest

to encounter the Bluebird of Happiness

through the exercise of being aware,

I find to my annoyance and chagrin

that often,

no matter what comes up,

I see only the shadow side of it.

I do what's recommended:

I feel the emotion,

sense the anguish of guilt and shame,

and then I let all this pour through me,

and hope that the next time

(for our lives move in a spiral)

the next time,

or the time after that,

the feelings will shift.

 

The ultimate lesson, an indirect one,

is the one I have most needed and least heeded

all my life:

treat yourself and everyone else

just a little more gently.

 

 

Copyright © Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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The Return of Wonder

How can I not wonder in spring?

I with the rock garden

of scilla, crocuses,

tiny species tulips, flowering vinca—

all of these magically (wonder-fully) arising

from the bare soil every year

no matter how harsh the winter.

No effort required on my part.

No watering, weeding.

My role is simply to wonder

at how the sleeping plants come alive

with just a bit of sun

and the promise of warmth.

A touch of spring.

A lessening of the grip of below-zero.

Would we all blossom in such wonder

if we were touched

(if we allowed ourselves to be touched)

by warmth?

Imagine the colours that would invade

our bleak worlds.

Imagine.

 

 

Copyright © 2021 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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Boxes

I have gratitude for the art of compartmentalizing.

In one box I keep my eerie worry

about changes and unknowns.

Into another box I arrange all the neutrals:

the Zoom occasions,

the uncut flyaway hair,

the British mystery shows

based on novels by those

genius women Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh,

Margery Allingham.

And the intense, if routine, joys of cooking and eating.

 

In the golden box lined with nacre

I put dreams:

reclining on a soft bench

I watch rich clouds drift by,

light and dark combining in an enormous pillow

that looks like a bullfrog about to leap

but then a quick puff of wind turns the bullfrog

into a panda.

Our dreams lead us to wonder.

 

 

Copyright © 2021 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

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A Winter Apparition

At 8 o'clock one evening I looked through

a front upstairs window

to admire new snow covering the neighbourhood.

At the far end of a narrow strip of garden

beside the driveway

was a small dark figure--

a child, well bundled against cold,

but nonetheless disconcertingly alone.

He knelt right where garden

and sidewalk meet,

and he faced the house,

his hands scrunching snow into balls.

 

Who was he?

At a distance, at night,

a Michelin man of miniature proportions,

a magical creature dropped into the scene

in order to focus my mind,

a gnome of winter's garden.

 

Actually, it was young Freddy

from two doors down

taking a break

from his self-appointed task

of shoveling our walk.

 

 

 

Copyright © 2021 Ann Tudor
Musings blog: http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00JI4758O

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