Category Archives: bush walking

No Temple Or Steeple – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about place and space.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Place and Space

Photo: State Forest at Kirrup

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” Gary Snyder

No Temple Or Steeple

What place
would capture my heart,
make me take off my shoes
and in silence commune?

No temple or steeple 
has ever,
nor memorial,
though all speak in hallowed ways.

Instead I go where the air moves,
where the sun and moon speak,
while the bed I walk upon never sleeps,
and the breeze whispers its translation 
through leaves of understanding.

Here I rejoice in the chorale 
of feathered song,
the trilling brook, and
even granite's imposing, stony silence.

It is here I take off my shoes,
speak in a language of soul,
feel this place deeply
as Lovers are wont to do.


Copyright 2023 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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A Sign Of My Own – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Image by Beto from Pixabay 

“He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.” M.C. Escher

A Sign Of My Own

Pieces of life lay spread before me,
morsels for the wanderer,
flesh, bone, fur
just as the hawk had left them,
scattered,
were they for me?

This sadness of pieces
a sign of my own
fractured self,
scattered,
as a stranger in this place.


Copyright 2023 ©️Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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Everything – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Ingrid is hosting Poetics with an invitation to write about Gift – for more detail follow the link below.

dVerse Poets – Poetics – Hidden Gifts

Photo: State Forrest at Kirup in early spring 2022. Jarrah trees reaching for the sky.

“If we can cultivate a concern for others, keeping in mind the oneness of humanity, we can build a more compassionate world” Dalai Lama

Everything

It turned up one day
completely out of the blue it would seem,
though not in the post,
no envelope or stamp,
there wasn't any wrapping,
nothing to denote its significance,
but there it was 
an indescribable feeling,
a sense of at-onement with all things,
extinguishing either-or relays,
an end to duality,
everything as pure gift.


Copyright 2023 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Floating Away – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting the Quadrille with an invitation to write about track or any form of the word.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Track

Photo: Mollerin Rock, the trail is scant.

“If you never get off-trail you never discover new landscapes.” Maxime lagace

Floating Away

I love where the track narrows,
restricting, though never constricting,
the pilgrims of hallow advance,
not seeking to overcome or consume
the weight of material living and,
once entered, discovering that
everything floats away like
harvest husks on a dry breeze,
seeking new pastures.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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Recentered – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Photo: Koorda Wildflower Reserve, the sun setting in the west.

“Find your center and stay there. It will allow you to live your life to its maximum.” Barbara Ann Kipfer

Recentered

When the heft is hard and the cost too high
I retreat to the wilding of the bush,
where the tracks are narrow,
no neon to light the scrub that 
rings the ageless lichened granite,
raw places of song-larks, echidnas,
goannas along the winter creeks who draw 
down the crisp morning air with a crackle,
and evening's dappled light amidst the trees
is such joy I forget myself and I am recentered 
once again.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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In The Forest – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

In this poem I have riffed on a line from ‘Sometimes’ by David Whyte the line is: “Sometimes if you move carefully through the forest.”

Photo: Beelup National Park, Mundaring.

“If you go off into a far, far, forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected to everything.” Alan Watts

In The Forest

Sometimes 
if you move carefully through the forest,
you might just hear your own dreamings
in the wind rustled leaves,
or see the loud beauty of a dew drop
preserved in such silence,
it is pristine at noon,
perhaps too the interventions 
of the raven's musings might 
raise resonance of feeling,
like the touch of damp humous
to the nose, or moss to the skin,
eucalyptus flavoured rain drops
splattering from leaves,
sending memories,
inspiring ideas,
leading me onwards.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 


Below is Whyte's poem:



Sometimes   by David Whyte

Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest

breathing
like the ones
in the old stories

who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound, 

you come
to a place
whose only task

is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests

conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.

Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and

to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,

questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,

questions
that have patiently
waited for you,

questions
that have no right
to go away.

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I Take Hope In That – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

“A bird that fears falling off a tree branch is ignorant of its gifts.” Matshona Dhilwayo

I Take Hope In That

I closed my eyes and 
ran my hands along the top rail of the farm gate,
its gnarled timber long massaged by many hands, 
washed smooth by decades of rain, 
opening up the ancient grain with 
striated streaks along its length, 
where moss and lichen breathe and tiny
things hide beyond the eye,
the smell of lanolin brings welcome memories,
and though its nails and screws are looser now, 
a sag visible with scrape lines in the dirt, 
the gate is ever strong, standing firm, 
and I take hope in that.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️

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So I’ll Say It Again – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

Video: Beedelup State Forrest, Mundaring, there’s always something more, rain, sound, birds, wind, feelings, smells ….

“For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough.” Brene Brown

So I'll Say It Again

Perhaps it hasn't been said
or, if it has, then too quietly
under the roar of everything,
and not-with-standing all 
that is ill round about us, 
right down to the wire of
possible despair, whether
we're counting moments or
holding the long view of it,
is knowing that this is not
all there is, there is always
something more.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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The Whole View – Haibun by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting Haibun Monday with an invitation to look up, and write about the experience.

dVerse Poets – Haibun – Look Up

Photo: Bluff Knoll, first you have to go down before you start to climb up the mount, here covered in fog and rain. This was a great days climb and well worth the experience.

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” Maya Angelou

The Whole View

My experiences of looking up are experiences of momentarily leaving myself, placing myself in the cosmos, letting go any singular rootedness and finding community with all things and all beings, animate and inanimate, rocks and trees, mountains, the sky and all it holds. I don't feel diminished by the bigness of it all, I feel included, and I feel moved to include all things. In that sense of acceptance comes a deep sense of harmony and belonging for me.

To look at the grandeur of a tree and trace its linear circuitry, to reach out to the sky and know its infinity, to view the mountain and feel its strength and presence, are deeply moving for me. Looking up at this mountain reminds I am not the centre of life, not even my own, I am simply a part of the whole that seeks life together. To look up at this mountain is a reminder that I have no control over it and no need to do so. The call of this mountain is to take pleasure in its gift of diverse experiences that enable me to know a little more about life and who I am and a lot of letting go and not knowing.

Looking up the mount
I saw the heavens opened
jasmine tea goes cold 


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 







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Have You? – a poem by Paul Vincent Cannon

At dVerse Merril is hosting the Quadrille (44 words) with an invitation to write about Celebration.

dVerse Poets – Quadrille – Let’s Celebrate

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

“Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.” Abraham Joshua Heschel

Have You?

Have you smelled the sun or felt the stars,
touched the moon in the early hours,
stuck your tender toes in salted sand,
watched egrets dance the lake,
listened to waves kissing the beach,
taken a lover with whom to celebrate
these easy joys.


Copyright 2022 ©Paul Vincent Cannon
All Rights Reserved ®️ 

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