In my haste to leave the house for work on Thursday, I left my phone at home. The 50 minutes commute in quiet contemplation went surprisingly quickly.

The return journey was spent squeezed between the sharpest armrest and a person who couldn’t seem to get comfortable in a seat with barely enough room for one person let alone sharing it with me and my portly stature.

Prior to sitting, they asked if I was saving the part seat next to me for someone. Could they sit down? I was flustered being in the middle of retrieving things I had spilled on the floor from my back pack. Hurriedly, I said of course, of course!

They seemed to be on a mission to call every person in their contacts with the same questions: What are you doing? What did you do last weekend? What are you doing this weekend?

Somehow, I managed to sketch ideas for variations on a self portrait I’m planning to paint in watercolour. The break from the phone provided space for inspiration to move me forward.

In keeping with last week’s water theme, the following is a poem entitled, More Precious than Diamonds. I wrote it ten years ago, against a background of drought.

Delicious drops of dew glisten in the

Cool light of dawn, slowly, slowly, dripping

From leaf from bud from twig. Clouds speed above,

Drizzle foreshadows a downpour, to drench

Landscape wide. Streams and brooks rush, swell, rise, run

Into rivers, flooding deltas, breaking

Free, flowing out to sea to oceans deep.

Dive into life giving blue, cleanse body

And spirit, swim west to sway with undines.

Grasp the chalice of aitch two oh. Deeply

Drink to link with Druids of old and new.

Oft’ used for scrying by many a seer

To reflect and look from seen to unseen.

More precious than diamonds, worth guarding well!

Below is a recording of me reciting this post including the poem.