May I Have a Seat?

May I Have a Seat? 

“Just   

 sit there right now.  

  Don’t do a thing. Just rest.”     

  Hafiz 

What Hafiz wrote of in the fourteenth 

century, now over nine hundred years 

hence, remains as vital as any other 

words from a mystic, guru or even 

a drifting grifter, hitchhiking through 

the galaxies. 

What a relief! I need do this one thing: 

sit, just sit. The puzzle is that the longer 

I sit perched in meditation, like Leonard 

Cohen’s “bird on a wire,” the quieter 

everything becomes. Racing thoughts 

forget where they were going, the neighbor’s 

dog barking is no longer a nuisance, 

and soon Fido heeds the silent call too. 

Though the days of sitting cross-legged 

at my altar have long past, I do what I can 

from a chair, moved to in front of the altar, 

Sit, just sit.

©Paul Goldman May 8, 2022

[photo by Steve Williamson Space for All Sentient Beings]