Pooh Bear and Hindu Philosophy
It was a fine early Spring morning, and in the Forest the Animals were busy Being Themselves, and doing all the things that Being Oneself involves.
Pooh had had a Being Myself morning, sorting out the hunny jars and wondering if two half-full jars were really quite the same as one full jar, or really quite different; and why a half-full jar looked quite different from a half-empty jar..
But now this afternoon the Boy and his Bear are walking down the path towards the Poohsticks bridge, and the path is feeling Springy too, with its dry leaves and twigs and beech mast like the bouncy mattress in CR’s nursery, as if they were saying ‘yes, we are here too! ’
‘CR..’ said Pooh, holding CR’s hand rather tight as he did when a Big Thought was hovering like a bee who hasn’t quite make its mind up whether to land here or move on somewhere else, ‘what’s Ah-Dwy-Ter? ’
‘Well Pooh..’ said CR slowly, wanting to answer but not wanting to confuse a Bear of Very Little Brain who was also Beloved Bear…
‘There’s Dwy-ter and Ah-dwy-ter… Dwy-ter means sort of Two to Indians, and Ah-dwy-ter means Not Two…’
There was a long pause, while Spring went on springing, and the bee in Pooh’s brain did another circle because it sensed that there was more hunny somewhere in this flowerbed than had yet called attention to itself.
‘So it’s like, when it’s a stormy day and we shan’t see each other, and I feel saddish and Not One… and then at lunchtime the clouds clear and you come along and I’m happy to see you…and I feel that you and I are really Not Two when we’re together…? ’
‘Something like that, Pooh’ said CR. ‘Because, if someone were coming up this path towards us right now, they might say ‘Oh look, there’s the two of them…’ But we should know it’s not really like that…’
And a warm happy feeling spread from Pooh’s feet walking on the bouncy Spring path, up to the tip of his nose and the edges of his ears that CR liked to stroke when he ran out of words.
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
0371 Reading behind the lines
So if it makes you feel great,
OK, go ahead -
as long as you're making yourself more attractive
for me, not your next husband...
OK, look like Anne Robinson if you must;
yes, she is great seen full-face, I grant
but now she's got no profile
to match those wit-sharp comments
to a sideways glance...
and yes, it's blushingly well-known
than a man can't even recognise his own wife in a crowd
if she's had her hair done in the interim...
so who am I - except the one who loves you
like the supper we've had every week
since we were courting? ...
but let me just say this:
I who have loved you
in my quiet way
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Am I a Poet?
Dunno about you (that’s why
I’m writing this poem) but
it’s the noun thing, ‘poet’: as if
you’re simultaneously committing yourself
for life to something – although
you would love to do it for life,
it’s somehow got
public connotations.
A good place to test the word
is a party – if you make some pleasantry
and the lady’s eyes brighten and she says
‘That’s very poetic..’ you’d be mad
not to continue the conversation…
So ‘poetic’ is OK, . It’s
non-theatening,
environmentally friendly,
warm-hearted;
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
0164In Mind
It’s only now, only now, that I remember, that I can see,
how you made your presence felt so often;
so long unlooked for, seeing only absence, never believing presence;
for in the subtlety of your wisdom, the wisdom of your subtlety,
you leave reminders of that presence in that secret place
where it’s as safe as childhood happiness
forgotten, then remembered…
for you speak a closer language to a child,
closer than the growing child comes to believe.
When was the first time - now I can remember who you are,
when you first spoke to me?
Wasn’t it that day when I could toddle unsteadily
but with wide open eyes, where the lion’s head
poured water from its mouth into the basin?
and in the paving of the bricks – which anyone could see –
you left me that private, secret message,
knowing that I’d not notice, (so I’d not forget) ,
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Two on the Road
In later years, this day came back to you
as days of presence often do:
It’s the end of the midday break, and
the sun, already warm for Spring, is easing;
the sheep are grazing on the new grass;
two of them have jumped the low stone wall
to munch the juicier grass of the roadside ditch
which has spent the morning in dewy shadow.
Where the path to the stony fields
crosses the track back to the village,
you’ve found yourself walking just behind
a pair returning to the village,
father and son – or is it, grandfather?
You could overtake them, just to show
you mean no harm; but something about them
draws your attention; so you walk behind them
at a distance indicating that you know they know
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Stone and I
By the edge of the mini-pond
where I sit when the weather’s fit for it,
there’s this stone.
I’d like to call it a rock
because that sounds more dignified
and metaphorical and carries
more tradition, but
it’s a stone
and on it grows a lichen;
not the vivid, flat, yellow and vermilion and red and black
lichen that grows on stone walls
by the seaside; this one
has those colours at its edge
but has a furry crop of tiny green fronds
cropping from its mossy green
which are quite vigorous in their tiny way.
I liked it so much that I tried
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
0006 Prayer for the Condemned
He’ll be the next to go.
In the Condemned Block, over many years,
he’s moved up the line; now he’s got that end cell.
All legal processes have been tested.
Of course his lawyers will fight once again –
a pardon’s out of the question, of course,
but maybe just a lifer? (He’s spent half of it
behind bars anyway.) At Association Time,
if it’s allowed, the others look at him
covertly – how’s he taking it? And maybe
know a little more of themselves..
And so, we’re asked to pray for him
knowing in our hearts, that he’s but
a metaphor for all of us.. so despite his crimes,
there’s that in us which feels that we are he…
and redemption’s not unknown, to God or man…
are we just praying for ourselves?
But how to pray, and how to pray for – what?
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Jewels of the beach
Plash…keesh… plash…keesh
the waves throw themselves
onto the pebbly beach,
but as if they regret their own angry generosity,
pull back a sieved undertow of finer pebbles
mixed with rogh toe-grating sand;
their generosity the swathe of larger pebbles
which gleam like jewels, before the salt-water
dries them into centuries of scratched, scoured surface,
dull as familiarity.
That swathe of jewels – magic to a child;
but now I’m older, yields a mental miracle
of nature ceaselessly at work:
green bottle-glass pebble – rounded to a smooth, safe shape
for the child to spot and pick up –
that’s easy to trace: from fishermen’s magic globes, the net-floats,
or bottles thrown carelessly overboard
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
0181 Mr and Mrs Andrews Seated In Their Estate
Beware, if you’re a portrait painter,
of being born in England. And if
you’re skilled at background –
the rolling landscape which they're
so proud to own – or painting highlights
upon a silk or satin gown…be doubly hesitant –
we ruined Holbein and we ruined Van Dyck,
with our demands to make us victorious,
happy and glorious, long to reign over others
in our stately home, later in
the auction house, in
the ‘collection’ of the recent millionaire, in
the public gallery; though while you live, Sir Portrait Painter
we'll enrol you in our club as temporary gent…
Beware - if you’re a potential patron -
of being painted by the great:
in the corners of their flattery
whose price you resent but need in greed to have,
lurks truth. You, sir, looking so judicious,
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
It's joost not FURR! ...
From my extended family,
the indignant cry rings out –
‘It’s joost not FURR! ’…
Whingers all? Ah – but listen
to the sound behind those words…
this is not the ‘Yokshire’ voice,
standing square on the earth
as if it always owned it…
this is the sound of centuries –
two at least - of men’s sense of injustice:
forced off the herding on the lovely hills,
the fresh cleansing air, or
the market gardens of Lytham and the coastal plain,
down to the water-valleys and the foggy, smoky air
of the mills; the cotton dust into wheezing lungs
shortening their lives as they listen bed-bound
to the clatter of the morning clogs:
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!