Minding Where I'm Going
I have been practicing the art of pursposefully seeing.
This is a poem about that experience of purposefully seeing on my walk to work from Euston Station to Chancery Lane
There used to be a time When I'd wander down a lane, Not minding where I'm going, Getting lost again. Seeing things before me,My mind would wander far,Like the loss of time we sometimes feelWhen travelling in a car. But now I am more purposefulIn what I want to see.I find features in the mundaneThat start to stir in me. Two parks on my way to workAre full of many things:The bark that bulges outwardInside its many rings. The statue in the centre Of the man who preached for peace,The man who lies beside itWho often has the least. A cornice on a building,Carved and hanging high.Why place a man unknown to usFive metres in the sky? How stepping through these placesCan distract or draw us in.A walk that once was just a walkIs now where thoughts begin. A person in a windowIs a soul in solitude,Who finds the things in peopleThat others might exclude. To see things as they really are,Or how you'd want them to be,Is the art of truly lookingAt the world we choose to see. Once I lost the everydayBy letting life go by,But now I am determined thatThese days in me won't die.