-- Nothing At All --

John Herlihy

What are you thinking, someone asked?

I had to think about what I was thinking.

After a lot of thinking, I had the answer.

Nothing, I said to someone, nothing at all.

In gazing intently toward the distant horizon,

I realized it seemed as if I were thinking.

Thinking of something measured, deep, profound,

Lost in my thoughts with no desire to speak.

Indeed, I often find myself as if lost in my mind,

An interlude of absolute rest, cool and silent.

A pause from the running river of thoughts,

Unending, uninvited thoughts making a claim.

Who do they think they are, these thoughts,

As if another witness had made itself home.

An alter-ego with so much baggage to unpack,

All fighting for my attention, I the true witness.

Unwanted fear there in some corner of mind,

Worries, anxieties, with no truth, value, form.

Sometimes lies, even, that we begin to believe,

With no depth of truth, yet have dug their stake.

And so, whenever possible, when I think of it,

I empty my mind, put all my thoughts to rest.

I lay down quietly in the graveyard of my mind,

Quietly feeling the fulness of emptiness, blessed.

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Copyright © John Herlihy

Thursday 5 January 2023