Happy New Year 2022

Are we yet but wonders
That still the ocean deep?
Carrying our message
Of light and life so steep.

Do we show the world
The choices that can be?
From self and endless ‘me’
To love and purity.

Do we climb our path,
Our endless curving way,
Showing how to manage
When life steps in the way?

When the path turns upside down
In a breath, a blink, a flick
And reality reforms
Around another sandy brick.

As clouds drift through the sky
Forever changing form
So flow our lives and thoughts
Following their norm.

And as we step into the year
Of Twenty Twenty Two
My thoughts of light and love
Flow out to share with you.

Happy New Year 

© Copyright 2021 Robin McShane

Returning Home

Early morning from Hospital Bed

There’s poetry inside the soul
Where sleep resides yet no one knows
The depth of being
The space
The size
The experience that grows
To making whole
Or part thereof
As joined together
One with one
We make the breadth, the depth
The whole that shares all pathways walked
Then takes us back from whence we came
Richer, fuller
Death now past
Soul rejoices, rejoins
Homeward bound
Fulfilled
Complete

Copyright © 2021 Robin McShane

On Becoming A Hermit

 

Amongst the shades
And nets
Of impropriety
I settled,
Nesting quietly,
Circling the space,
Creating comfort,
Building walls for an
Illusion of Protection,
Keeping them out,
Keeping me in,
Zones of Perfect me.

Life left me alone.

© Copyright 2017 Robin McShane

***

Just a thought on the dangers of clinging to our comfort zones!!

Months Pass

One whole month of pain,
Another full of pleasure,
Tell me how to take,
A full month’s measure.

My life’s appeared,
One month at a time,
Given me space,
To find my own rhyme.

Which month is the worse?
I really can’t say,
I’ve learned now to live it
Day by bless’d day.

Each one bringing
Its own special pause,
Creating a wake
In its own unique course,

Building a life
Of hope and despair,
Allowing me moments
To find myself there,

If I but look …

***

© 2017 Robin McShane

Photo from NASA Hubble Telescope

 

A Journey

 

I emerge from this fog laden mist
Like a diver resurrecting his right to breathe,
To think,
In an atmosphere
Where clarity prevails.

Where have I been?
Why have I suppressed myself for so long?

Foglamps flared along the path,
I saw them not,
Ignoring the light,
Adamantly following my own trail
As if I knew the purpose for my journey.

Trampling on moments,
I gazed to a future,
To my next destination,
The goal I set myself
And, feeling no fulfilment there,
I simply set the next…in stone,
Until it too crumbled under the weight of my expectations.

Did I look up?
Did I breathe the space
Allowing awareness of what was
To fill my soul,
To complete me?

Silence became something to evade,
Time, an enemy,
As I rushed through in
My ruthless determination to get to
Where I knew I was going.

Until the clock stopped
And I could make no more goals to chase.
Body and mind left me,
I could not trust them,
Muscles spasmed, hands dropped,
My brain found chasms opening
As tissue gave way to disease process
And the consequences followed.

I pulled myself up from the floor,
Aided and raised by unseen hands.

Fog thinned,
Lungs breathed,
Eyes saw,
Muscles returned.
New pathways forged the brain,
Burning routes for impulses to travel,
Shattering blocks in the way.

Awareness followed,
As moments became hours.
Scenes abounded,
So much in so little
That only my inner could feel.

Life became too bright,
Reality flickering on and off
As my willingness to see played
With my fear of what I might find, or be.

Trying to regain control,
The floor fell away again….and again…and…

Years of bouncing became the norm,
Until, weary of the game, my soul
Called a halt and I hung suspended
Between there and here,
Nothing and nowhere,
Everything and everywhere,
A shock to my triumvirate system,
My being.

And so I hang,
Energies swirl,
Life carries on.
The sun rises, the sun sets,
Rain falls, rain dries,
Seas fall, seas rise,
Mountains, squeezed from the land,
Make headway to the sky.
Animals that were, die,
Whole species are born,
Live, then find extinction.

Stars twirl,
Pouring their light through the cosmos,
Flashing on me, through me, and on…

I hang suspended
Through time and motion,
A journey in the void,
A trip back to where I began,
And forwards to where I’ll finish,
All in the same place.

What a strange journey!

***

© 2017 Robin McShane

Friday’s English Haiku – #30

***

Signs of you lie still
Quiet in the midnight air
Breathing gone for now

***

Destiny Unfurled

***

Where once we stumbled naturally,
We now stand proud and tall.
Life beat us down, took our pride,
Yet now we’ll take that fall.

For journey’s end is not in sight,
Destination far,
As pathway’s passage, moments lived,
Prepare for next step’s star.

Flowing through the gates of life,
Being as before,
It matters not in mind or soul,
For from the body tore

Differences between then and now,
Not seen nor felt nor heard,
But soulful touches, deeper strokes,
Destiny unfurled.

***

The Song of Life

Then more come
And I wonder how we will all fit
But the guards shout and push
And somehow we all get in

We feel movement
The journey begins
We stand squashed together
Scared, silent, bequeathed

To what? We may never know
Why? We may never know
Where? Maybe we don’t need to know

It is enough to still be standing
Breathing
Frightened
Nervous
In the moment
This moment
The only one that matters
Right now

We might all die before the next one
And I still need to sing it
The song of life
The endless melody of being
With harmonies of now
‘All contributions gratefully received’
From everyone present
Each one heard
Listened to
Appreciated

Someone just needs to start

To produce the note around which all harmonies
All heartbeats will build
Until the music ends
And silence lives again

****

© Copyright 2016 Robin McShane

When The Time Is Right

There were things about myself I never knew,
Things that in my world I would eschew,
Tiny details hiding in the cracks,
That would one day come and stab me in the back.

I was not happy with the way life used to be,
So hit the road to find a better me,
How silly looking back I should have known,
You only take the seeds that you have grown.

Running ’round the world a second time,
Never really finding what was mine,
The greatest shock, the best discovery,
Those things I longed for most, were deep inside of me!

Then the details that I thought would make life slide,
The ones I’d spent such time searching outside,
Came creeping out of cracks where they had hidden,
And now stand stark and proud, forces unbidden.

I suppose the time is right when things appear,
Although we may well wish them gone from fear,
For nothing in this world can happen out of sync,
All our lives, our loves, our being, one big link.

Which means, of course, we’re never really ‘out there’ on our own,
We’re always linked to everyone around us, though we moan,
Forgetting every word and thought will ripple through the links,
And change the lives of every living thing, like light through chinks.

Awareness is the answer that we seek,
In every moment, thought and action tweak,
So everything that passes through our light,
Contributes to the power and the might

Of every point and path creation flows,
As onward, outwards, upwards all life grows,
And feeling from within thy specialty,
Of standing still a moment just to be.

****

© Copyright 2015 Robin McShane

Picture of heic9910a from Hubble Telescope, courtesy NASA

Dark To Light

****

There’s a darker ring,
If we all give in,
Chase a world we think others see.

There’s a lighter side,
If we turn aside,
See our light now shining free.

But what fun is that,
If we can’t extract,
The pleasure and the pain,

Of living in
This body bin,
Coming back time and again?

Part lesson here,
Another there,
Taking lifetimes now to learn

The part we chose,
From heart exposed,
The experiences we yearn.

Emotions bit,
The pleasure pit,
The pleasure and the pain.

We chose each moment,
To our detriment,
And took the trip again.

There soon will be
No darker lee
With which to play this pace,

Light is firing,
Fast vibrating,
Finished with our race.

And thus I raise
My glass in praise
To the present and the past.

Life is changing,
Seeking, ranging,
Days of nights can’t last.

So rise up now,
Grasp the Wow,
Your soul, your life, yourself.

Your light unfurled
Upon the world
Redefines its wealth.

In gratitude
Find fortitude,
A Universe of joy,

And lovingly,
And caringly,
Share with woman, man, girl, boy.

****