This golden moment #haibun #dVerse

The washing machine sloshes with a dim, somnolent hum, but that’s not it. My heart pumps, blood also sloshes: if I close an ear, I can hear it. That’s not it either. I draw breath, try to breathe the light, breathe out the darkness: is this it? Getting closer.

Time spent in meditation is time out of mind. I don’t have to force it; if I force it, it won’t come, but if I let it come, my mind switches to a zero-state. It’s like hitting restart on the computer. Once I do this, for however long, I’m able to function much better. But this isn’t it either.

We are not simply machines. In that zero-state I tune into a different kind of consciousness: vast, beautiful, unknowable.

This golden moment
when inspiration whispers
bliss is eternal.

Written for dVerse

Tonight, Frank is hosting Haibun Monday, and has asked us to ‘write a haibun that expresses the present moment.’

I try to spend some time in meditation every day. It can be a powerful and life-changing experience. I’m still a long way off experiencing spiritual enlightenment, but I see cracks of light through the darkness of perception every now and then, so I keep practicing.

The peace which comes through meditation is also conducive to writing poetry. As Wordsworth famously stated in his preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798):

‘Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.’

It’s true that in the past, I had plenty of overflowing emotions, but very little tranquility. It is hard for me to write poetry without finding that peaceful reflective space.