Reflection is useless

when looking in a stone

the surface unyielding

to any sort of enquiry

And yet,

we would be more intelligent to ask the stone

the pebble

who am I?

then to listen to the rabble that surrounds us in the midst of daily life

The routine

Same people

same thoughts

same places and familiar jaunts to and fro

as from home to work to play places we go

These things hold us in a grip of bland identity

one from which it is very hard to squeeze out of

like perfect shadows

under a perfect sun

they delineate us

each from one another

So and so and so on

and out of sheer boredom and a lack of interest or knowledge

we indulge

patterns.

Who we were yesterday

who so and so is today

for all intents and purposes a bottomless timeless box sits spewing foam pellet packaging

from which we arise everyday

brand new moment, spanking secondhand busted arse human warranty expired sometime after leaving school

before twenty

maybe even younger

When was the last original thought that sprang to mind about yourself?

when you asked a new question

found a different answer

It’s difficult

amidst the pileup of yesterday’s that play familiar tunes to stick in your mind and rotate regurgitating hummm

and there is the task, the job, the role by rote that is given just to you and everyone else

Duty calls with a smoking gun and we deliver ourselves handcuffed and mute to the daily grind, office commute now invading our homes by way of screen that peers at our bookshelves

over our shoulder

and lays a little more format down into that profile disorder called self and other and I

As the faces flick bored eyes over each other on screen and think about the sour dough riser stains on their loose waisted pants neatly tucked out of view

But I digress

who are you when none of this mess is present

and you are merely sentient

‘neath broad sky

the hiss of waving grass around your thighs

no phone service

satellite safety circles high biddable from outer space on the Garmin bouncing at your waist

Who wears your face

when there is no routine to keep your mask in place

no amputated perspective glued together from someone else’s ideology of what you are capable of to weld your idea of self onto

and renovate splendid additions out the front and around behind that don’t quite add up but we keep on sticking them on

like post it notes to the perpetual memories that we hope live on after the eulogy is read

even though we have no idea what will be said

since – it’s all someone else’s perspective after all and lives in other heads

The voice of judgement is silent

mountains only

a small trail

a dirt road

trees for company

and the guileless eyes of birds

wheeling above and chatting in the eaves

Who are you amidst the sharp silence between footfalls on yesterday’s leaves

shadow walking under the sun

everyone and no one all at once

insignificant

nothing

human undone

*I do ramble around in my thinking when writing a poem, but I hope when I’m doing so, and you’re reading that you go around and then back to nature again. It is my favourite place, I like the idea of again and again taking the reader by the hand and bringing them with me back outside to nature. Our nature. Inside and out. Because we are natural being designed for natural environments not artificial ones.

That’s the idea anyway.

Header picture is of a little wizened old tree that I pass by at the bottom end of my walk along the stock route. It’s always the same but the light changes around it making it look beautiful/ugly/ordinary/plain/stunning