Meditating on Meditation

The birds are singing over me

As I sink softly in my chair

And loosen then my grip and free

A billowed breath into the air,

Remembered not and led away

So night may lead to light of day.

No steps aside, no further move

Is now required of weathered feet

To wander more into the groove

Upon the floor where worries meet

And machinate to melt below,

And dragging with them scores of woe.

Another pair is broken free:

The bearers of the heavy load

Of aches and pains that trouble me, 

Now creditor to payment owed

My aging weight; and now to roam

No longer lost and carried home.

The cords are snapped, the rope to fray

And cannot hold my inner core

As, one by one, the sinews lay

Themselves without a life to store

Within; for now, they can depend

On life itself to hold their end.

A cage no longer snares its prey;

So now my heart relaxes, too,

And reunites my will to stay

With sounder mind and clearer view

Seen deeply through the windowpane

Into the world to love again.

There is no need to sigh aloud

For bated breath gives way to song

Which mystifies the anxious crowd

And takes it merrily along

The boulevard of mended grail

Toward the mount to lift the vale.

If ever men of purpose be

Prepared to brave that steep ascent

Wherefore to wander is their plea

To powers that grant enlightenment:

So there our concentration sets

Extracted, tested, called to rest.

Then all dissolves to thinner air

And our commanding souls and minds

Begin our journey everywhere

To lands unknown, outside of time,

Or grasp, or any worthy thing

Beyond ourselves, our reckoning.

My lungs are full, my eyes awake;

I scan my living room once more

And then remember, undertake,

To know the world I knew before;

And as my smile returns to me,

I stand myself, alive, to be.