Permeable – a poem by Christopher M James

 
Permeable
 
Each New Year
the watering ceremony
on all the Buddha statues.
Crowds spill over
holding bowls fragranced
with flame of the wood, yellow
gardenia, cape jasmin…
for the righting
 
of thought, deed and word
from the swell of the past.
I pitch forward to the front
to come out in the wash,
use two lotus flower stems
to dab the drops
awkwardly, fastidiously,
in the spirited jostling
 
as if finely patting
with small swabs, like
a pointillist painter
honing in, out, in
for a clear perspective,
like
the burns patient I was,
the nurse I’m becoming.
            
 

Christopher M James, a dual British/French national and retired HR professional, lives near Paris. He has published in Aesthetica, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Journal …. and in numerous anthologies (Live Canon, WoLF, Canterbury Poet of the Year, Verve, Dempsey & Windle …). In the past three years, he has been a prizewinner in numerous competitions (Sentinel, Yeovil, Stroud, Poets meet Politics, Wirral, Hanna Greally, Maria Edgeworth, Earlyworks…). He is also a musician, a translator and, some would say, a failed journalist.