A poem by Madhuri
(Les Diablerets, where I spent nine blissful months in 2004, is nearly 5,000 feet above sea level. This is a poem about hiking, but even more about meditation – a thing I was discovering newly in the wake of the profound passage of brain surgery.)
It was a seven-bench walk.
(The Swiss put nice red benches
at intervals up every country road)
I’d swung out of bed into it,
wore good boots and walking clothes.
Just in these two last days it’s winter;
white on rooftops, white on pines,
black road, black under-branches.
White above on thick rock
which is proclaimed Mountain.
White bringing the Massif closer by far.
Oh, yes, my blood comes up
to the job of striding;
oh, yes, my muscles are firm
from my months here.
And oh, yes, my blood loves winter –
the winter this tropic’d, desert’d soul
has rarely seen.
Oh, yes, I’m Celtic when the snows come,
cloaks all wrapped about me,
striding strong.
I’m of cool places, mists, and trees –
yet have leapt over seas to Indian confabulations,
was born in desert truck-stops, oh.
The first six benches
are covered with snow
so I do not sit.
The valley sinks lower.
I take the turn to La Lavanchy.
A collection of barns and houses, rough wood.
Cows belling and stamping
in a barn and out –
I glimpse their muddy flanks.
Fromage des Alpes, says a handpainted sign.
But I’m looking for the seventh bench.
It’s up the way where three roads converge,
or part, depending how you see it.
(Reminds me of my love-life;
that’s the only clue you need.
reminds me of my travel-life, too –
the number of continents I live on.
Where is peace?)
Now – the boulder
serving as the seventh bench.
High above the valley –
(there is a sort of shelf here – )
dropped on just a little bit by birds –
it regards the three ways;
it’s humble, not altogether flat
and I fold my scarf up and sit down upon it.
Closed eyes.
Here’s the closed-eyes part.
Do you know the
closed-eyes part?
If not, I cannot tell you;
but it is native, so you must.
First, sounds.
Cowbell. Dog barks in valley.
Drip of snow-melt.
Things get colder.
I celebrate my bones.
Air delicious like snow-cream,
sparkle-water, freshet.
The air celebrates me,
this chance meeting.
I celebrate my bones.
Vigour, youth, sparkle
are the gifts of this snowy morning.
I celebrate my bones.
Finally I talk to Those,
and I am answered.
I celebrate my bones.
Air-beings and body-being –
each guidance characteristic.
I celebrate my bones.
Body-knowing is my own weather –
careful in its moment –
grokking burdens, and how
to unseat them.
I celebrate my bones.
Air-beings sing when queried,
brief short songs.
They tell me all I’ve come to live for.
I celebrate my bones.
Time to bow now
low over the boulder
over my own knees.
This is heartfelt. Needed,
this pouring
of my heart to Those
who sing around
my heart and feet.
They celebrate my bones.
Down the mountain, brisk with cold.
Firmly lowers the sky.
Rain from all the branches.
Snow floats in a new wind.
Hurry, hurry! The load of poems in my heart
like food in a backpack
waiting to be eaten
before it spoils or melts like snow.
Down the long black so-cold road.
Les Diablerets, Switzerland, October 2004
Featured image by Remi Moebs on unsplash.com
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