Raccoon With a three pronged garden tool I lifted the animal’s lumpish head beyond the chimney flange and it lay, pivoted on its neck, looking down on me, so young and light-eyed that it startled me into thinking it was still alive. I put the tool down and with a gloved hand gently pulled it […]
Say, Don’t Say By Paul John Roach Don’t say We wasted a minute, We were thoughtless or Profligate with time, We could have done better, We let it slip away. Say We were here, Even when we apparently weren’t, It was still going on, It was ours. The celebration Is in the ordinary moments And […]
Seeking For Dannie Abse, Welsh poet, writer, physician. 1923-2014 Seeking a deeper sensibility Like Dannie Abse’s, I jettison the chaos of memory For the right word And the right resonance, The psychological deep end That refracts A swimmer, Forgetting how to swim, A child, In the boots of age, Wryly recording What looks like a […]
Zen By Paul John Roach Using thinking to explain non thinking, Using words to explain the wordless, Committed to the struggle Of elucidating the effortless, Why is it the purest joy And the uttermost horror Are part and parcel Of what the Universe allows. Tenderest care And classic indifference Coexist In the turning of a […]
Late Afternoon, A Coruna, Spain The secret world of the sea Is appliquéd with a flux of silver. Waves push the spume Against black hills. In the foreground, on the terrace, The laundry dries. Each hidden fish and octopus and crab Is a commonplace unto itself, As are we. Each moment the mood of […]
The Seamless By Paul John Roach Originally published in Grief is a Spiritual Practice, by Unity.org. The ancients, when misfortune arose, Or sacred codes were broken, Tore their clothes in anguish. With white fingers of blame, They poured ashes on their hopelessness. When Jesus died The curtains of the Temple, it is said, Were rent […]