Peace
Sailboat
Click for meditationRegarding "Sailboat"
To be free,
To be carried by the wind
Uncaringly, to
Cast your lot with
Fate and to let the tides
Caress you with
No fear, because you
Have decided to
Be free, the air in your
Hair and the
Air imbibed like
Quenching, wheat beer…
Ah, yes, free,
Answering to no one
But Mariah the Wind, and she
Turns her gaze
Towards you and asks,
“Why not come
Here, where the sails
Are topped for your life
To live?”
Leo Carroll
July 9, 2018
There rides my
Daydream, sailing towards and
Away from me,
Gracefully,
Effortlessly,
And then gone it is
Beyond a jutting shoreline,
Where it disappears
For a moment behind
A teasing veil…but then back,
I see it, back, tacking
Towards a little
Summer isle, appearing
To slow offshore
A small, sandy beach,
Contemplating,
Pausing, deciding whether
To dip its masts
Towards me — and from
Afar show a
Promising smile!
In Retrospect, Ode to Walden Pond
Click for meditationRegarding "In Retrospect, Ode to Walden Pond"
The only way I can
Describe Walden Pond is to say that
It exists, but its existence
Is more like a dream, or a daydream, or better
Still – like something make believe,
Maybe like the magical movie,
“The Wizard of Oz,” where
Judy Garland dances
And sings her way through every
Fantastical landscape
And situation.
Walden Pond seems…
Well, perfect! That is the
Only way it can be
Described, a place for
All seasons, all depths and
Fathoms and temperatures of its
Peridot waters, all shapes
And hues of its leaves,
All hopes and possibilities
As they lead down rough-hewn
Stone steps to the water’s edge,
All laughs and wishes,
All lightheartedness, all hopes,
All, all…and it is found in
Concord, year round, every year, and
Even in darkest winter it is
A wonder, at cold sunset,
At anytime, because as
Dorothy says to Toto,
“I’ve a feeling we’re not in
Kansas any more…”
Leo Carroll
May 12, 2018
If I never swim again,
At least once in your sweet waters
I will have done…
I will have felt the joy
And rush of your precious
Peridot, and know
In your fathoms I was
Made welcome.
Even now in winter, with
Your surface iced-o’er
And cold become,
In my mind lives my first dive,
When I felt the summer
Warmth of the
Beauty I plumbed…
Being
Click for meditationRegarding "Being"
I am coming
To realize that in this
Wood I am seeing my reflection,
Everywhere, in the form
Of leaves and trees
And inaudible
Whisperings, animate
And inanimate, in God’s
Image, all things
And me, beauty
Surrounded by beauty,
Change surrounded by change,
Life and death
In tandem, and seen
E’en in the faces of
Brittle hues on mottled,
Genuflected, leafy
Knees…
Leo Carroll
August 7, 2019
So here I am,
Where immersed in this
Grove of almighty
Pines and beech I sit,
Peaceful, as long as lasts the
Glory of this instant…
In sync I am, and putting up
No resistance like
Autumn leaves – simply
A pilgrim on the path
To crinkled dust, and
Carried by the wind on
The carpet of
Creation’s love…
Snow-Cold Silence
Click for meditationRegarding "Snow-Cold Silence"
How
Crystal-perfect
Was that moment, as if time and the
Woods and all other
Things seemed to stand
Completely still,
Nothing moving, nothing
Stirring, utter quiet
Both within me
And outside of me,
And all while I inhaled
Snow-cold air,
An air telling me
Flakes were poised
To fall upon a
Landscape waiting,
Poised to be sipped like
Finest wine poured
From a golden
Goblet called late
Autumn in New
Hampshire.
Leo Carroll
July 30, 2019
Over me
Spreads an
Imperceptible
Yoke of
Silence,
Pushing shut
My eyes,
Despite all
My resistance
To being
Pious…
Nothing is
Moving now,
Not even an eyelash
Nor a leaf, not
Even sound, not
Even color,
Not even what
I believe…
Nothing is
Moving, as
Creation pauses
Before
Loosing the
First flake from
November’s
Heaven,
And between
Now and
Then, in
Awe asleep I
Am sent…
O Eternal Mother
(Ode to Primeval Stone Wall)
Click for meditationRegarding "O Eternal Mother"
What beautiful peace and
Comfort come to me when I recline
Against a stone wall, particularly
In autumn, when all my
Senses are on fire, and every
Nuance of every living and
Dead thing in the woods leaps
Out at me! It is the best time and
Place of the whole year
For me! Every poignant
Event in my life, every recurring
Memory, crawls out from
The crevasses in the
Stone wall I am resting
Against, and comes back
Gently before my heart. I
Feel melancholic, but I also
Feel blessed, because somehow
I have been gifted the
Magnificence of the stone wall
I am leaning against, and its
Wisdom and perseverance
Bring me the sure knowledge of
A listening ear and the
Prospect of an eternal,
New start…
Leo Carroll
May 24, 2018
Like a womb to me you are,
A place to curl against and to softly shut
My eyes, a place where I can feel
Warm and cradled, and a place where
Long ago hands can still humbly labor and
Lay their stones to bound their
Fields and farms and sighs…
Yes, all these centuries later, you
Still steadily run east-west towards and
Away from me, and each of
Your stones, mottled and so smooth,
Offers me a pillow in a bygone
Kindness I find courteous
And disarmingly beautiful…
Ah, I swoon, swoon…and I recline back at
Rest with you — found by autumn,
Unconditionally accepted, and all I have
To do is to daydream, because the
Work has long been done, and the cows
Called home, and the last croaking
Raven flown over the treetops into the
Twilight of the next hollow, and silence now
Alone sits with me as the beech and
Oak and spruce upon me look, and
Occasionally their leaves and
Needles nod to whatever it is they
Perceive…as sunshine dapples
With the shadows, and modulates my
Mood in consonance with the
Beating heart of Thee.