Practice

i.

Mostly, when my spirits plummet,

words desert me, which means no poems.

So I have decided to practise words

like scales on a piano,

major, minor and arpeggios.

I'll find an image and play with it.

        The music is frenetic,

        jangling all the nerves.

        Its a suitable symbol

        for flinching families

        in Gaza and Tel Aviv.

        The last movement is peaceful,

        like my tree-enclosed garden,

        which has survived

        thousands of earthquakes;

        a fitting symbol

        of continuity against the world.

      War and gardens are simultaneous;

      the music gives a linear response,

      wisely not attempting

      reconciliation.

There, here is today's practice.

ii.

Families are a memory bank.

When my brother told me he had cancer,

I should have bombarded him,

not with compassion but with questions.

Since he has died, I have no one else

to fill in my past.

I know who I am now

but I don't know who I was then.

I'm like a book with the first chapters missing.

iii.

My practice has reached a stalemate:

day after day of C major scales.

It seems I haven't the motivation

to shift to a minor key,

which would require only

the lowering of one note.

That would open out a new possibility

and a new ending.

But to speak truth, its not the key

which is the culprit, its the sameness:

the endless repetition of routine;

spontaneity long, long vanished.

I am condemned, like Sisyphus;

And, like Sisyphus I have two options:

I can either wallow in the absurd, always

on the lookout for the fast-track to death; or,

acknowledge I am but a tiny speck

in the immensity of life,

a speck with a heart that can respond

to love and beauty and joy.