Poem: A Lodger For The Night

This original spoken word poem uses the metaphor of a sandstorm to describe the crowded, overthinking mind, especially for the beginner meditator. We are overcome, as thoughts sweep in furiously like a sandstorm, but if we sit with those thoughts they blow out as fast as they came in. Through the meditation practice, we can know peace – a tranquil mind is waiting on the other side of our overthinking sandstorms.

Music credit: Rest by Acreage; licensed through Soundstripe

Transcript

Thoughts sifted home in the mind like grains of sand packed in tiny crevices,

Nooks like marching ants.

They swarm the corners,

Stake claim,

A lodger for the night.

Invade the brain,

Coerce the mind,

This guest has overstayed its welcome.

Thoughts pile in till soft tissue has no home.

Scratched and hollowed out,

It takes the blows.

Another wave of thoughts,

A million grains of sand.

Weigh me down,

The world is lost.

Smothered by mindless specks that move in patterns on their own to make my mind unhappy and scattered,

Alone.

A million miles deep,

The sand flows to the abyss,

The silence is vast until at last I hear the grains of sand they start to talk.

Like giddy teenagers run amok and send me here and there,

No over there,

Until I'm worn out.

A million scenes replay in my head,

Most of them horrors,

A sandstorm of dread.

I shake my head to dislodge the army,

A charge released,

A spark disarms me.

It comes to pass,

Flushing out a million specks of blues and brass.

Oh thoughts,

I'm clearing the decks.

And then they're gone,

All that remains,

Gold flecks like sawdust at dawn.

And I can breathe,

There's freedom blowing in the breeze.

The panic loosens,

The sand recedes,

The mind shuts off and hollows out my crowded loft.

Reviews

🙏💛 Thank you this and a series of suggestions from the A.I. inside of I.T. were very helpful today

This is fabulous! - beautifully poetic, and powerfully worded, with an ending that put a big smile on my face. ❤️