How do we choose to travel?
What is reliable in the rain?
What is our ultimate destination,
for this time, this journey, or
this day?
We move at the speed of life.
Depending on traffic, others
may chose to follow your path,
but not your direction.
© 2021 j.g. lewis
A little cold, little wet,
a little tired and yet
I am here. Still,
full of wonder.
The morning chill leaves
little to the imagination
and much less
to hope for.
Expected, perhaps, as it
always is, this time, this
season is only what
we ask of it.
11/21/2024 j.g.l.
The answers are far less certain
than even last week, to all those
perennial questions or solutions
you might seek.
What do you believe, or
what do you believe in?
Come Monday, you have fewer
questions than you had last week.
For a while there are less doubts
in what you believe.
Whom do you believe in,
and who believes in you?
11/18/2024 j.g.l.
Consider each moment
leading up to now.
Cause and effect
affects where you are,
whom you have been, and all
you are now.
Any possibility sustains every reality.
To doubt is to question;
to ask is to reply.
11/22/2024 j.g.l.
As of late, for reasons as varied as they are non-existent, I have not been writing in the manner of which I have come to expect of myself. I am neither as prolific nor as detailed as, I feel, I usually am.
My poetry, while still insightful, does not command the length or breadth I feel I am capable of. Revisions to a manuscript I have toiled away on for some time have become painful (perhaps a sign that the work is closer to completion than I care to acknowledge), and my mind wanders to another project that requires the same diligence.
My daily writing is less than it once was (I feel guilty about that), and even the scant sentences I jot down in my journal seem to only document my time here on earth. Nothing extravagant, nothing more than a slight glimpse of where I am. Nothing that memorable, sadly.
I’ve been feeling for months that I am ready to embark on another kind of writing but have yet to determine exactly what that might be. I am full or ideas, characters, dialogue and circumstance, but it doesn’t quite feel like it has the backbone it needs to pull me in a certain direction. I even, a few weeks back, bought a fresh new notebook to keep these thoughts separate from all the others. The notes I have included in this book are random, undeveloped, at times personal, and (as of yet) make little sense. I reread these notes, almost daily, and I am inspired enough to clarify or expand on certain streams of thought, but it needs a more definite direction.
Perhaps I do as well?
11/17/2024 j.g.l.
I'm like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
I am not one for prayer.
I am not sure about hope, several past decisions, or
the trajectory of my path, but
I am fairly confident
we shared something meaningful once.
That may be enough
to pull me through this day,
to help me remember
we can all get through anything
when friendship offers what it does, as it is meant to.
It is greater than a prayer.
It is the basis for hope.
@ 2019 j.g. lewis
– to let slight pain seep into your psyche.
– to let symptoms become problems.
– to let that last mistake haunt you.
– to expect too much of yourself.
– to become disappointed.
– to overlook your worth.
– to settle.
– to stop.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
Are you resting or waiting?
A former yoga teacher used to, occasionally, ask this question in class. It was always during the long savasana in the middle, after the warm-up and standing series, and in preparation for the final half.
Even if the studio was mat-to-mat with bodies, this question always felt like it was directed towards me. It was always on days when the sweat seemed to run more deliberately into my eyes, my breath would not soften, my muscles remained tense, and my head would be stuck in the emotional traffic.
I’d get all fidgety and restless, and it was nothing like a corpse pose should be. My focus was on anything but my yoga practice, and it was like I was waiting to move on or waiting to be done with class so I could get on with everything else.
I wasn’t reaching the stillness required.
I wasn’t resting.
I was waiting for the next postures to begin.
There is a huge difference between resting and waiting.
When you rest, whether in a yoga class or getting much-needed sleep at night, you need to let your entire being go slack; your eyes remain closed and your mind is open, and there should be nothing trailing in and out of your head.
When you rest, you leave yourself open to dreams and ideas, and change. Your blood flows unrestricted, flushing the body of toxins and negative energy. You breathe, unceremoniously, allowing oxygen to circulate and seep into the cells and deepest reaches of your brain.
When you are resting you remain open to what is ahead. You aren’t waiting for anything.
When you are waiting, even when trying to rest, you never reach the point of relaxation.
While you are waiting, your muscles are contracted; your rigid back and bones preventing blood from flowing freely. When you are tense, your mind is closed off to everything, except the thing you are waiting for.
You are too intent on looking ahead, and thinking how you’ll get there, that your body does not have the opportunity to rejuvenate. You become anxious, and issues and obstacles appear out of nowhere and they stick around for as long as your reckless mind will allow.
If you don’t get the rest you need, you can’t recover from what you’ve been putting yourself through. If you don’t rest, you are never fully able concentrate on the tasks at had because you haven’t rested well enough, or long enough.
You’ve been tying up the mind with waiting for what will happen, that you never see and feel the rest of what life has to offer.
Waiting is fine, waiting can be good (good things come to those who wait), and waiting is necessary, but it should not interfere with your rest.
We spend all too much time thinking of things, when we really need more time to sit and not think.
We all need more rest, and we all need less waiting.
I know I need more time to relax and to breathe.
We all need the time to rest and just be.
© 2016 j.g. lewis
Freshly fallen snow accepts my footprints.
I continue.
How long have I travelled
and where will I end up?
The path is not solitary.
In my absence the footprints will be joined
by the definite steps of others, strangers I will never meet,
but each of them will leave a mark.
As I have done.
Footprints will continue after the snow has
melted or washed away with the next rain.
Every step impermanent, but not without purpose.
We are each on a path, at times without direction.
All of us have somewhere to go
even if it is not witnessed by others.
© 2023 j.g. lewis
I once thought I
was somebody else,
unrecognizable
to my self,
my sanity and
a specific ideal
of whom I should be.
Somebody else, unlike me,
historically.
I thought once
somebody else could
recognize me,
the way I was or
wanted to be.
Flaws and all,
as it is, as
it was, as it should be;
mysteriously.
© 2023 j,g, lewis
I’m like a pencil;
sometimes sharp,
most days
well-rounded,
other times
dull or
occasionally
broken.
Still I write.
j.g. lewis
is a writer/photographer in Toronto.
