-- Drifting --

John Herlihy

Sometimes I find myself drifting

I see something that takes me there

To a place my heart finds uplifting

Inwardly I see, outwardly I stare

A vast, eternal and living place

That welcomes you whenever you go

When your everyday world you cannot face

Past and future dissolve into a moment you know

There you are in a place where you want nothing

Not a dream, your mind brings you there

A place where every nuance becomes everything

Even breathing in and out becomes a prayer

Drifting into a place where you have to go alone

Feelings around that cannot be contained in words

Not daydreaming, but lost to the outer world prone

Almost as though sitting content in a nest of birds

As a child, I remember catching a grasshopper

Silent and still, like a soldier, as I held it in my palm

The beloved insect also seemed to be drifting

Until it began to recite some ancient psalm

In bed in the dark part of the summer night

I hear the insistent music of the cricket sounding

Taking me to a place that feels oh so right

My imagination all aglow and my heart pounding

The wonder of the firefly, the enchantment of snow

So much in the world that makes my head spin

Those twinkling stars and that soft moonglow

Settles deep into the mind, while on my face a grin

The horizon, the earth’s hem, always inspires

I can sit on the porch and look at it forever

The sparrows at dawn singing as in celestial choirs

The music most lyrical and as light as a feather.

Give me a solitary moment and I find myself drifting

The mind an amazing place that can take us away

Into worlds within worlds our sweetest desires sifting

A place that I must leave, even if I want to stay.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Thursday 29 October 2020