Someone sent me a poem I’d written quite a while ago whilst on retreat. I was quite pleased with it and it garnered some positive comments. Here it is:
A sound emerging from nothing – like polished glass
Sitting in meditation, the cry of a curlew
The slumped back straightens
The Heart does not need to overreach
Sound dies away
Another moment passes – bring the mind back
To me, it’s in the style of Zen poetry which utilises the imagery of Nature to generate a feeling of expansive connection, stillness and harmony. And it got me thinking: why is it that Nature is able to generate those qualities and can we generate those qualities without using natural imagery?
I suppose the classical tradition of Zen poetry was established in a pre-industrial era when the natural world was the environment with which we were intimate (and needed to be intimate with) for our material survival. It was our only source of sustenance and shelter, bound up with the passing of the seasons. Modern science has also now shown that connecting deeply with Nature and direct exposure to Nature has profoundly positive benefits for our mental health as well as for our immune system.
The Zen edict to drop the self, I feel, also requires us to drop our identification with our species, our anthropocentric concerns and limitations. As we moved into the industrial age and now the post-industrial age, we have become less connected with Nature. And yet, it still has the power to help us drop the self. Nature has no agenda other than survival and it has no ego. It has a brutal and beautiful matter of fact honesty about it. But the reality of most of our modern lives does not involve Nature and this is the world that we must train in. And so I challenged myself to write a ‘Zen’ poem in a post industrial age with no reference to Nature. This is the result:
I sit down to write a poem
How vainglorious!
The distant sound of a lorry seeps into my awareness
The bin isn’t out!
I disappear
And am back
I was momentarily away