Category: Photos

With Rod, Line, and Bait

Spending days waiting for something to bite,
Wondering whether it’s better at night;
Burning in sunshine and freezing in rain,
Always returning to do it again.

Patience, a virtue, all fishers must know,
Struggling to know just where all the fish go?
Some favour maggots and some favour worms;
Only successful on the fish’s terms.

Why do they bother to turn up each day,
Sitting about with so little to say?
Is it fraternity? Or lack of sense?
Or are they just putting on a pretence?

Wives left at home with the children in tow,
Though they are happy for husbands to go;
Each looking forward to relative peace
Giving them time for their stress to release.

When he comes home at the end of the day,
She will be watching and feeling dismay;
Knowing his basket is empty, again
He’ll catch a big one; he doesn’t know when.

Why she allows it, she never will know;
Yet, she is happy when he wants to go;
Time spent apart gives each time to reflect
So their relationship knows no neglect.

Absent in body, but never in mind,
Letting love grow into rarest of kind;
Hearts growing fonder although they’re apart
Otherwise, she’d never let him depart.

Mindfulness practice means taking control,
Settling the feelings that bother the soul.
Thus, some go fishing, with rod, line, and bait.
Clearing their minds whilst with patience they wait.

Reflections

Look back if you can.

Learn from all your past mistakes;

Then change your future.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Many people live in the past. They wallow in the misery of past mistakes. Yet, we cannot change the past. It’s gone. Would you aim to empty your trash bin, to recover the contents for sentimentality’s sake? Of course not. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Still, let’s say that you threw a favourite china cup in the trash because it was broken. Now you can do something: You can learn from the mistake that broke that treasured possession and try to ensure that it doesn’t happen, again, with the replacement.

In the same way, leave past mistakes in the past; but learn the lesson, and change the future.

One Hundred Thousand Welcomes

Irish Lake

Memories,
Floating, drifting,
Pouring through meditation,
Clamouring for acknowledgment,
Savouring this opportunity
To impose themselves on mindful thoughts.

Remembering the lake;
A vast expanse
Of clear, blue water
Reflecting a cloudless sky
Now sepia-toned
With ages past.

Remembering the trees;
Clinging to life
In barren, rocky land
Where legends grew
And mysteries spawned
To prey upon unwary minds.

Remembering walking
Over moor and hill
Past crofts and villages
Shrouded in mists
That hid their beauty
Behind its translucency.

This time
When we were young
And unaffected
By life’s pains and troubles;
When all roads
Rose to meet us.

This land,
Mysterious, yet familiar,
That taught us patience,
Peace, and solitude’s pleasures;
And showed us how
To live.

What difference is there
‘Tween youth and age?
Only time. Yes, time;
And memories of life
That now impose themselves
On mindful meditation.

Memories
That come flooding back
Despite our best endeavours
In trying to clear
Our cluttered minds
Of pain.

Memories
That seem so useless
When trying to forget;
And yet so precious
In guiding lives that have lost their way;
If only we would listen.

Caed mile failte;
The ancient blessings cry.
One hundred thousand welcomes
To all the weary travellers
Who search so far
Along the road within.