To discern

                our place

To commune

To see

                beyond our close shadow of death

To focus

                my poet mind

I need direction

                a qibla

Or some beads to tell

                to take refuge from my life:

A candle flame

Only the candle

Flame

Flickering.

A journey into quietude

                begins

Into that silence

                comes tranquillity

And the absence of words

Serenity beyond words:

                I become sentient -

                conscious of only this moment in the flame of a grain of sand

                                Of the sun shining through golden autumn trees

                                Of the clearing mists

                                dissolving in the valley and above the hills

                                giving way to rain that fills the sky

                                so that the branches droop, dripping

                                as the wind rustles the upper boughs

                                and drops spatter on the window glass.

                                Of love

Peace

Perhaps, now, I am no longer physical

                But have become a spiritual being

                having a human experience

Writing

                And in the writing

                                the words return