the perfect cylinder of chimney, its ivory plastic like bone china against the pale blue sky

an empty chocolate wrapper, shiny brown & white, the plastic at the opening crinkled with parallel lines, no use to anyone, how can I find its beauty?

yesterday's spent pistachio shells sit in a pile like sea-shells

all day singing to the Buddha. nearly time to go home. I sit next to my husband at the back and look around the room. everyone is here. he takes my hand. whenever I look at him my throat constricts and my eyes water and I can't chant past the joy.

this food

bought, chopped, cooked and served by someone else - grown, transported, rained on, nourished, evolved over thousands and thousands of years.

looking at the grey cloud with a teased-out edge moving across the sky
I notice my heart beating too fast
the pressure in my foot bent up underneath me as I type
the tension between my shoulders
I watch the cloud
I watch the cloud

time

a faint slithery feeling in my stomach as I watch the second hand sliding round the face

10 days of continuous chanting begins

namo amida bu
namo amida bu
namo amida bu
namo amida bu
each nembutsu released into the air like a bubble
among thousands upon thousands to come

kittens + sofa

squrrrrcchchhh.... the sound of claws on leather

this morning the kittens are frantic, brutal, their playful wresting turned sour, they let out cries try to flee each other. this is practice for the-world-out-there.

autumn has breathed on these leaves: yellow dots hovering over browns, a pointillistic painting, a scattering of golden fragments.

Tsuki's whiskers all-white
dark smudges of fur where they emerge
golf-ball dimples

tea: a hot morsel in my mouth, disappearing out of awareness and into the dark pit of my insides

this triangle of concertina-ed paper in the shade of the corner of a stair holds its own perfection in humility.

she is working for a man who can no longer speak. he is mean to her and others. the others go, she stays. she has made him happy. last week, she found out that he did terrible things when he was younger. how can we stay? how can we stay?

a tuft of fur trembles, reverberating with his purr

small insignificant details

white braille-flowers on bone-china mug. the generous earlobes of the grey Buddha. white hairs in the kitten's black tail. the reflection of the table leg in the golden grate. a tight pain in my neck. the clicking of Kaspa's mouse. this is my life.

Returns

He helps a woman who is alone, who is struggling to move her mattress across to the desk. He helps because she is a human being, and so is he.

the Hng and the Halo make honeyed ethereal music, jelly-fish floating through water, dandelion seeds floating through air

Freddie, just 2, pulls my cardigan back across my bare shoulder.
We have long conversations using single words and sounds.

this plant is all about upwards. fronds fountain out, straight up, green with scarlet edges. underneath they grow weary, shrivel, are plum-coloured, their tips pale. one falls and a kitten carries it around in his mouth.

in IKEA canteen, the same conversation ricochets around the lofty plastic space. only this much money for a fried breakfast. only this much money for coffee. that's cheap. cheap. cheap. we are like scavengers.

A gobbet of flame crosses from match to wick but doesn't catch. I hold the fire closer. Sit back. From here, the halo-white tip extrudes above the golden holder like a tongue.

Tsuki kitten sits in front of the door, patiently. The door where the big cat disappeared several times, and the humans have reappeared. Outside leaks in through the edge gaps. On the other side, a bird is singing. Cars whoosh from left to right, right to left. On that road, the other cat was killed.

small red berry, so bright I cannot help myself, I bend & pick it up.

out walking, a pale ginger cat approaches me from the opposite direction.
miauw, miauw, he says.
hello, hello, who are you? I say.
miauw, miaw, he says, enjoying my strokes. we talk for a while.
we part ways.

i am ill. my job is listening to these people. i put my illness aside for half an hour at a time. i listen. they say 'bless you, bless you.'

first winter cold

a scrumpled-tissue-day

something tangible and other came. everything changed.

a stranger's eyes on this room: strange pictures, strange Buddha, strange books, not my life.