Nothing Special

Thirty years ago in a city I’ve forgotten,
fading sunlight on an October afternoon
captured me among strangers
standing alone together at a bus stop
as one mass silhouette,
nothing special about any of us—
a cluster of ash, birch, and cedar
casting a single shadow across a field.

Pool Music

Under the high roof of the old market
now a health club with three pools
Chinese women in the hot tub
mix Mandarin and English, their words
masked by white noise of pumps whirring,
children splashing, lap swimmers churning,
their voices floating above the turbulence,
water lilies on a windswept pond.

I first learned insight meditation more than thirty years ago as a college student struggling to quell incessant mental chatter. After an initial burst of beginner's mind, I deepened my practice by incorporating it into the setting of a Quaker meeting, which offered a community of seekers comfortable with silence.

After drifting away from meditation for two decades, I resumed sitting after the death of my father prompted a period of reflection. My daily practice today revolves around a single intention: to open my heart to all living things.

Matthew Kohut has worked as a writer, teacher, and musician for twenty-five years. His poetry has been published in The Dreamers Anthology: Writing Inspired by Martin Luther King and Anne Frank, and The Ekphrastic Review. He is the co-author of a book on social judgment theory that has been translated into nine languages. For the past decade his work has focused on helping people communicate more effectively in high-stakes settings. He lives in rural New Jersey.

More on Matthew Kohut’s work can be found on our Links page.