0249 To Enjoy. Poem by Michael Shepherd

to enjoy the enjoyable. It seems a modest enough aim
and what we're meant to do by human nature, surely? and yet
that urge to set up the next scene, to move on - do you remember
those old films where the heroes were always saying to their side-kicks
'let's get outa here! ...' pioneers of the about-to-be - this moves us on;
so 'here' doesn't stand much chance of being enjoyed;
and nor does 'now'; and can we ever say
whether we enjoy things more or less than others
- or more or less than our parents or grandparents?

and here I remember my mother, who could recall
in vivid detail with a humbling gratitude, every minute
of some rare act of kindness done many years before -
an unexpected car trip to the park, a fresh baked cake,
those things which are small change to real neighbours
but which she so often gave, so rarely received;
(the old should never move, uproot, unless of gipsy nature;
friends are not so easy made among their settled peers) .

So how precious the nap of an afternoon, if properly enjoyed:
a few minutes, and the brain's wiped clean
of all the morning's bruising, weighed concerns.

The eyes open on the sight, today, of an angel
depicted by Piero della Francesca to console a duke
whose only son died as a youngster in his bloom;
and thus he has the likeness of that son, enjoying
eternity
in my back room. So instead of getting outa here,
a book of poetry idly picked up, with the phrase
'the world forgetting, by the world forgot'; and then,
gently overwhelmed by the lovely yearning
to visit that place where poetry enjoys itself
in unrevealed mysteries - mine, his, hers, yours, read, written -
and in being, simply to enjoy
simply being.