My reply to Tagore

Separated by a century I reply to a poem....

Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence? 
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.
(RabindranathTagore,  The Gardener, 1915)


A reader replies

Great bard of Bengal, now almost one hundred years since those lines,
I, your reader, descendant of the Raj that you despised, living in a world so different to your day,
read of your garden. My heart leaps! 
I fling wide my garden door. The flowers, bright birdsong and fragrances speak now as they spoke in living joy 
that still rises with the sap and sings of divinity in subtle colours, so pale. My spring morning:
that same elation from floral memories and golden clouds.




(John Butterfield 2012)

Money

by John Butterfield

Six times today

I was urged to buy

a big issue...

Twice today

I was asked for change by a beggar

enamel mug to collect coins

Once today I used

online banking

transferring a big sum

at the press of a key

Was it real

to use a magic keystroke

to share or hoard

without human contact

without having to look into someone's eyes...

When is money most real

the small coins in the mug

or the digits on the screen

in red or green

for more and more

money is detached from human reality

moved about by plastic cards and pins

The man said

you cannot love God and money.....

I know I cannot see God

but money has become invisible too

an invisible expression of power

Obsession

by John Butterfield

the unattainable

the impossible

creates an attractive illusion

which against common sense

and better judgement

invades the inner self

to create confusion

by distorting the perception

of reality.

The little “if”

is elevated

to an improbable certainty

and results in projection

of a most dangerous kind.

fortunately recognition

is the first step

on a path to recovery

Saved by Compost

by John Butterfield

a crate built of wooden slats

frames the detritus of the kitchen

and lets it sit the winter through, turning brown,

organically regenerating:carrot tops and beans

once I was disturbed and full of angst

roaring waves:  inner storm bound raged

and intuition and emotion clouded over

and I was hopelessly adrift and lost

I found new life and was reborn

when I committed to the compost heap

to rot with cabbage stalks and rotten apples

those destructive demons that raged within

Composting takes time

as enzymes break down

and smell so sweet that

organic matter of all sorts

compost now is a source of nurture

a source to bring food to living things

coming from the dead and destroyed

but it has to die before it can rot and be purified

lost

by John Butterfield

a city
Glasgow
streets tenaments and factories
roads and underpasses
all look alike
in the dark
street lights occasional
signs missing
night
where am I
my destination is somewhere in this direction
somewhere
there was a sign post back there
but now
where am I
in the Glasgow dark
Partick's unfamiliar side streets
intensity of panic increasing
how do I find my way home?

the funeral gathering (or too many masons)

by John Butterfield

dark suited with ties and yet not smart

in a shiny Italian way

but very respectable

they chat comfortable

man to man with each other

as they, followers of "the craft"

looking inwards to one another and

tolerating those outside their sacred circle

en masse attend the funeral

as the deceased was one of their own.

they seem unfriendly

but perhaps that’s because I am excluded

from this secretive inner clique

of lower middle class masons

and happy to be so

Prayer

by John Butterfield

Beating your head

on a rock

can surely be easier

and more satisfying

than this endless round of

asking

petitioning

hammering

and yet never seeming

to get in the door

no matter how hard the battering

standing always on the portal

in the hope

that the householder will

someday emerge

and reward his persistent carollers

if only for their persistence!

touchy feely overload!

By John Butterfield

A touchy feely person

in a touchy feely place

greets each other person with

a touchy feely embrace

but someone not acquainted

with these touchy feely ways

gets emotional indigestion

from such touchy feely days.

In this state of intoxication

or touchy feely overload

confused by rules not understood

instincts may explode

and the touchy feely backlash

causes self reflective pain

instead of bringing comfort

brings aloof disdain.

Scamp

Scamp was a puppy

A little yellow puppy

who bounced round the house

and barked at her name

She was so bonnie

She was a real cutie

She caused us such anguish

when God called her home.

Poor little puppy

Bundle of affection

was not strong enough

to fight the infection

The veterinarians healing

and powerful injection

Couldn’t stop God from taking

My little puppy home.

I mourned my little puppy

and missed her little footsteps

missed her squeaky barking

all around our home.

I hope there is a heaven

for little yellow puppies

who give mischievous affection

until God calls them home.

 A poem celebrating our puppy Scamp’s short life.   RIP

Blue Silence

by John Butterfield

Silence leads to light

lighter than white, but blue

as the name, much repeated

calls me deeper into the otherness

which is the sameness

but also the selfness

which defines and values

and raises perception

to make love visible as fireflies.

Love flows freely

from deep inner wells for

love cannot remain within

and still be love.

Peace flows in gently.

Calm: to later radiate benevolence.

Here I am free,

united and loved,

loving and present

waiting but not waiting

in the light

that is brighter than white:

the dawn blue of silence.

Train Journey

by John Butterfield

I never remember the scenery

nor the stations that we pass

but the passengers in my carriage

are part of life's rich farce...

There's the boy with the headphones

whose music is so loud

the we all can make out the lyrics

over the noise of the crowd.

There is the lonely older lady

who tells everyone her woe

and the beautiful young women

That men want to get to know!

There is the friendly girl with the trolley

bringing drinks, candy and snacks

and the grim ticket collector

who ignores all the wise cracks!

We rattle along for hours

in our own little world

enjoying the drama of the journey

all human life unfurled.

God Present and Speaking

By John Butterfield

God is present as we confer:

in the conflicting voices

struggling to consensus.

God is present in small voices

contending with the volume

of the powerful shouting.

God is present where principles

can't allow convergence or

ambiguous common mind.

God is present in argument:

weeping with the defeated,

rejoicing with the victor.

God is love and God is justice.

When love and justice triumph

then God has spoken indeed.

Earth beneath

by John Butterfield

Beneath our feet: the earth,

a celestial ball floating in the cosmos;

old rocks ancient as time;

huge, eternal, home to all we know.

Take off your shoes and socks and feel

the warm glow of the planets heart:

beating, rotating, cooling, warming, growing

microbes to macrobiotics; plants and fauna;

evolving, rooting deep down, transpiring

communicating in systems: complex and free

relating in relationships: interdependent

free from the control of human force but

under the hammer of human hands.

All across the globe people

in various states and tribes

look at the earth and find

pointers to different gods,

forming different communities,

showing the way that life should be

when across the deeps the spirits yearning

leads us ever slowly home;

finding shelter from the storms.

In ancient times people learned

to live in harmony with their home

planting and using what was for their need

and making ready their contentment

then as they saw that others had

developed in different ways

they didn't know how to cope

they made war on the not understood

and put up walls to divide

and keep safe their little plot;

their small share of the sacred whole.

Today we know those powers

we see the walls everywhere

but we have lost sight of the sacred state

lost sight of our connectedness

lost sight of the earth – our place

the shared ground beneath our feet

united by our common home.

Another day

by John Butterfield 

sunrise

lifting hope

and expectation

of possibilities

that only

a new day can bring

each dawn

takes me further from

past disappointments

and mistakes

and on

towards the bright hope

of new days not yet born

so I go on

step by step

creating a path

not yet trodden

with enough light from the rising sun

to illumine my feet

as the destination

becomes defined

in the early morning light

Tha Anchor

By John Butterfield

My life depends on ironwork, anvil forged

in nocturnal sea loch swell.

Wind: gale force eight.

The tempest howls; the rigging rings.

Sea state: rough.

The yacht rocks with violent swings

Visibility: poor.

Low cloud; the rain lashes; splashes.

Outlook: deteriorating

All is wild, disturbed and crashes

Far beneath angry black the barb bites

sludge, slime, weed and shale.

In my bunk, cosy, comfortable

sleep amid the ferocious gale.

Trusting the strength of every link

and the weight embedded deep below.

Adultery (Matthew 5:27)

by John Butterfield

Jesus said,

It is not the sweaty consummation,

writhing: energy to ecstasy

that is most destructive.

Much worse are the mental

unconsummated fantasies

that override commitment

and undermine reality.

That give imagined passion

the motivation and power:

dreaming driving drawing draining

relationships in the real world.

What can compete with the unbridled unreality

of obsession that leads to a madness of dislocation?

fulcrum

by John Butterfield

a fulcrum, as I understand

is a point at which a tipping can take place

a point at which things are balanced

and can go one way or the other

so a fulcrum is a delicate place to stand

for a wrong word or action

could tip you off

never to go down the right side

for if you unbalance the wrong way

it will be almost impossible

to get back up again

Fulcrum point of balance

where its up to you

no pressure

jump

Today

Today
by John Butterfield



Between hope and despair is a nowhere place

where it is too soon for weeping

and too late for partying

and all is unsettled, uncertain, unclear.

And in this empty place

this place of waiting

there is, most strangely, a peace

a deep, deep, peace

that comes from the deep faith

that beyond all human understanding

somewhere amidst the uncertainty

God is at work.

And we, protected from the vast void of nothing

which is the possibilities of futures unborn,

we live and love and watch the flowers grow

in the unsentimental reality

that is the present moment.

Creed

by John Butterfield






I believe in God
the father almighty
most of the time
but sometimes
I wonder
what life would be like
if I didn't.

If there was no moral origin to the universe.
If there were no origin in love
and no destination in love
just a rabid struggle for supremacy
without rules
in the short years of life.

If we lived and accumulated
and bonked and fought
and hid and cried
knowing that nothing meant anything
and all was ephemeral floss.

If the big brother house
were the model for life
and the animal instincts
we have mostly civilised
became rampart serpents
in the evolutionary struggle
of not so sociable
social Darwinianism.

As we trudge onward
on our return journey
to the primal slime....

I'd prefer to believe in God!


(The image accompanying this entry is one of the series of engravings by William Blake illustrating the story of Job)

Love

Love just is
By John Butterfield

“I love you”
is a phrase that never
should be followed by “but” or “even if”

for if it does then it is not love

Love does not have pre-conditions
does not require exemptions
is not qualified

love just is
and being so
is enough

for love does not notice imperfection
love does not count faults
love transcends petty annoyances

so love is not easy
and love does not happen often

and if it does
treasure it
nurture it
keep it safe from harm

for though it is strong
like all living things
without care and attention
it will wither and die.

I love you
never with a “but” or an “even if”
for love just is.