Thursday 12 August 2010

On looking out to sea





How could this be your face
Your eyes, your ears?
Your breath, your palms
Your speech, your laugh?
For that matter
How could you lay claim to all you see?

Every scrap you label as yours
is someone else's.
What a cat burglar this mind is.
See how he enters from the roof,
invades the floors below
and blocks all exits.

If none of this is yours,
Let him have what he wants.
He is only stealing stolen property.

Gratitude is too small a word for this.

2 comments:

Colleen Loehr said...

Everything is given, and nothing is possessed, even though the mind imagines ownership. Nothing is "mine", and nothing is "not mine". Thank you for this post.

maria marri said...

everything is a gift. freely given alright but not so freely received. By changing the concept of "gift" into the concept of "possession" do we not also change our inner attitude towards it? when thinking or feeling that something is "mine" would I look upon it in the same way that I would a beautiful gift? Would I use it in the same way? Would I guard it the same way? would I get the same out of it? A little change, oh so understandable, a slight mistake in perception and so many other changes fall into place. The puzzle still looks OK, it still makes sense. A completely different sense, though and we have been sidetracked.....