50. Al-Shahid – Unity: You and I

Suggests witness, calm, empty –
"the centre cannot hold" WB Yeats

To Innesfree

When Yeats suggested go
to one Lake Isle
in wind or snow and rain or peace or hail
- and plant nine bean-rows;

he hinted that to hear,
listen – become –
is the real game we play, or else be dumb
to a swelling of hearts and the sea.

Dervish

An old mate called Al
studied intently
the Gurdjieff movements
for one and a half decades:

intricate dancing
clear little head-turns
dervishes’ fingers,
hands, feet and eyeballs.

At Christmas time he suggested
carving silence on his inside,
tiny and sweet like a still-point
(in the eye of a tornado)’s
the most amazing thing he learned:
hollowed be thy name.