The Bield - Perthshire - 2010

(Here's a piece written in response to Andrew Philip's call for poets to write about their holiday reading, which in itself was a response to an article in The Guardian, I think, notable for its absence of holiday poetry titles.)

Not so much a holiday . . . more a . . .

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat retreat

retreat retreat

retreat retreat

retreat

retreat

Thomas A. Clark in a walled garden paradise with a cat on my lap lazily sharpening its claws on my thigh; Thomas A. Clark before and after a long walk through hazy woods, stopping to sit on a bench in a bower while red deer leap through wheat fields skirting the trees; Thomas A.Clark as I walk the stony path back to the retreat house, small birds skirling a network of whistles in the hedgerow.

THE HUNDRED THOUSAND PLACES

....................................................

....................................................

....................................................

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.................................................... x100,000

The lady who runs the retreat house asked to see my book. Perhaps she expected an old contemplative classic, perhaps something by Thomas Merton or Henri Nouwen. I told her it was a book of poetry. I told her I was a poet.

“Really?” she said, “How wonderful!”

A book about walking, mindfully.

His walk

My walk

His walk

My . . .

walk

wauk

wok

wind

waak

wawk

awk

wack

waulk

wind

wlka

wak

wuak

kwo

kwa

kaw

wind

The green grass glowing. The huge sequoia drum trunk. The labyrinth, in and out of myself. The girl with the burn marks all down her face and arms, stumps for hands. Lying in the grass as rain clouds gathered overhead. Walking, mindfully. Listening, mindfully, Reading, mindfully.

I finished the book that weekend, and it added to the experience of retreat, of silence. And it made me want to find a place to be like this constantly. In the HUNDRED THOUSAND PLACES, at once, one by one, as the mind stretches outside time and into singularity of experience. Only the poets can speak of this.