I try to meditate
for my mind feels like a storm
I sit on the hardwood floor
and look straight ahead
at first it is quiet
I can feel into my breath
the rise and fall of it
the endless tide of air
through us all
but then a car alarm goes off
somewhere behind me
and a mourning dove
hooos in seeming unison with it
I am distracted
and I grow angry
for I had a perfect moment
and now it seems gone
there was silence
and in it I could focus
but now there is noise
then I start to think
about perfection
the impossibility of it
the limits of silence
how what I hear now
is the life around me
and it is beautiful
it is perfect too
I listen then to the world
and there is no moment
of absolute silence
nor will there ever be
but I have found something better
than any perfect thing
and that is all around us now
everything here
loud and messy
and exactly how it should be