TESTING THE WATER

remembering Scott Hutchison

A flow we seek to capture,

bridge or channel, yet cannot confine.

Lithe as mercury, slipping fingers,

it is held in brush-stroked cloud

and then let fall, rattling on rooftops.

Pools, unstirred, collect

the tension of drip, drip droplets:

mirror-flat, refract our point of view,

reveal all kinds of surface.

 

Of running water, folklore says

that no enchantment can survive it.

To know the end you go to, be the stream,

not a stick that’s spun at source.

Ride the impulsive rapids to middle-age

meandering, no cataracts in sight.

At the delta of days, silt-laden

reach the surf; then fathomless beyond

swim until you see no land.

 

x - xii.2018

 

Dreich, Season 7 

PENSION PLANNING: a thumbnail overview

Are you sitting comfortably?

Then let’s begin.

Start with that problem-solving seminar: skip it.

Be absent from your performance appraisal.

Stay home on Away Days.

Decommission those best practice bullet points.

Make yourself available,

24/7, to yourself.

It is time, time to begin.

To begin to walk away.

Away from the fantasy that you could be someone,

other than who you’ve become.

It is time, time to break out.

To slip the reach of bureaucracy’s dead hand.

To reject the happy-worker hypothesis.

To wander from the wavelength of received wisdom.

It is time, time to return.

To return to rhythm of your own pulse.

Until work falls out of sight at last

below the horizon.

Give up  the mediocrity of cardigans: go on.

Keep that flat-pack furniture flat packed.

Convert the loft back to attic.

Abandon four wheels, find your feet.

Dig up the block-paved drive,

un-deck the patio, grow your own.

All these quality enhancements

benefit from our expert horizon scanning

and the latest in joined-up thinking.

You will see their financial reconciliation

embedded in your maintenance portfolio.

Sign here please.

 vi.2015 / x.2018