On returning from retreat

On returning from retreat, Frankston June 2016

So, how was retreat?

I have become breakfast, tissues scintillating like Coco Pops;
I am spread thinner than vegemite with the butter showing through.
I have become the sound of softly falling rain.
I am champagne feeling the bubbles rise and burst.
As ripples circling around the duck on the pond
I ripple in all directions.
Driving, I am flying, senses spread from horizon to horizon
the air blowing through me.
Rolling to the red light, I cease to exist in stillness.
I am spread taut across the universe
so the Beloved can play infinite rhythms
upon my membranes.
Delight is shimmering here, and there, can’t you feel it?

It was lovely, thank you.

©Tina Shettigara 2016

[Note for non-Australians: the Australian national breakfast spread, Vegemite, is hated by just about everyone else in the world, probably because when they first try it they spread it thick like jam. The only way to eat Vegemite is to spread it very thin.]

https://www.theodysseyonline.com/6-misconceptions-about-vegemite

Ducks on the pond, Brahma Kumari Centre Frankston, photo: Tina Shettigara

When Galahs show the way

When galahs show the way

Braking at yet another red light

The pressure under foot echoes dense anxiety in belly and in heart:

Running late.

But there, a row of galahs on the light pole

Lined up on the horizontal beam

Dozens of them; but they don’t quite fit

And one is relegated to the descending curve,

Slides and must take wing, flies around and wedges into the row;

Birds adjusting, and the one now on the end, sliding, taking wing,

Flying around, edging into the row;

And another slides off the end, and so it goes.

Cocooned I cannot hear their calls

The screeching chatter I know must be there.

But I am captivated and my belly laughs,

The dense knot releases, the light turns green and soon I arrive,

Heart full of joy, present and not late.

Tina Shettigara © 2016

This light pole is not even remotely like the one in the poem and there were way more galahs. Credit: https://hiveminer.com/Tags/galah%2Cgalahs where you will see many more galah pictures.

It was a pole like this,
let your imagination do the rest

I was driving past the actual location and saw these galahs on a nearby pole, so stopped to take their photo.
They waited just long enough for one snap. Taken with my smart phone.