Were You to Ask Me

In this grand hall I sit,

Among them a real misfit,

It’s good in such silence to be,

But too long’s too much for me.

You may ask what I do when

I appear to be in deep Zen,

For long stretches every day,

Sitting unmoving in this way,

Statue-like, and in special pose,

My mind focussed on my nose.

On my cushion hours I spend,

To sit, stand and then low bend,

I seem to have gone far inside,

But this to you I must confide:

“What’ll I gain, I don’t know,

For days on end sitting so,

Claiming thus to meditate,

Or, is it merely to vegetate?

Indifferent to the world around:

Can ‘liberation’ this way be found?”

Were you to ask me my view,

This is what I might tell you:

“Spend a while each new day

Turned to God, to Him to pray,

Listening well to all He tells,

To His Voice that in You dwells,

Chat with Him as with a friend,

And when this comes to an end,

Go out into the world and do

All the good possible for you.

It’s most simple; joyful as well”:

This is all that I might then tell.