Stillness tanka
Stillness tanka
Inspired by Elizabeth Bishop's 'One Art', Jennifer Brough's tanka explores the discipline that learning to be still requires.
Stillness tanka
after Elizabeth Bishop
The art of stillness
requires great skill to master.
In a game of wills
between you and being still,
who can outlast the other?
Start small. Train your ears
to sense a snowfall of dust,
then twin your heartbeat
with the gentle thickening
that collects around your feet.
Re-learn time telling
as a plant; bend your head to
a square of light that
arches its back, like a cat
yawning through the passing hours.
Resist that old itch —
the taut elastic pull of
what it means to do.
Halt movements at the marrow
breathe between muscular glue.
It becomes reflex
to step inside plush pauses.
Spread out on their bed,
seeking shapes in patterned walls,
afternoons unwind like thread.
I watch a coffee
uncurl its steaming fingers
and feel my hair grow,
each millimetre a bright
song of noticing tempo.
I’m still practising
the art of stillness, to be
a form in repose.
The bet resets by sunrise,
stillness daring me to go.