Twelve O'clock Meditation Class

Clip, clop.Clip, clop.
High heels echo down the hall,
Footstep after footstep.
A phone... a door... a laugh.
I try to concentrate.
I try not to concentrate.
This one breath in.This one breath out.
Thoughts curl in smoky spirals.My burning mind,
No longer banked with warm embers, now crackles.
Hot worries fan its flames:
"If only..."
"I should have..."
"I'd better..."
I have burned through the moment,
This moment,
The only one I have.
My mind mourns yet another moment lost:
"This won't work."
"I can't meditate."
"I'm only daydreaming."
I have lost many moments
in my life
trying not to hear high heels strike linoleum floors,
obsessing,
Till I come back,
Clip, clop.Clip, clop,
To high heels in the hall,
And catch
A slice of silence between two footsteps.
A pause.
I breathe one breath.
And so meditation begins again.

Mary Agnes Mullowney

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