The room as meditation. So then:
at its centre a bed with a body on it,
my portion of flesh and bone stretched
on a mattress that is firm, over there in the corner
paint peeling from the ceiling and the wall
(the painter had to be postponed), curtains frayed,
fading fast (the new ones are in the cupboard still),
to the right a photograph of cows sitting underneath
the fig tree, just down from the milking yard,
where we used to play, and rosary beads my father had
that now I’ve taken to fingering in the night, to the left
an icon of the Virgin Mary, something in me still believes
she might care enough to intercede, even though she hangs above
an urn containing ashes of the Buddhist monk who gave me
a lesson in impermanence, beside me in the bed
only a couple of stuffed toys, a teddy bear
all the way from Macksville, an elephant
all the way from Thailand, and, within easy distance
of my hand, a journal where I write
bits of thinking with the pen I bought when last in Paris,
and, finally, Staying Alive, a book of poems
ending with a piece in which, when asked what it is
he wanted from this life, someone answers:
“to feel myself beloved on the earth.”