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Oh what a luck guy am I to have had Rick ("Coolhermit') as a close friend for those treasured months in 2020.  Our exchanges were probably our way of escaping the boundaries of our locked-down domains. Daily we would exchange poetry and tales of life until his last words to me on the penultimate day of that year, "I'll keep in touch."  

A few days before that he had confided:
 
"After 48 years of pilgrim life (in my fashion) after an amazing encounter on Sept 5th '72 when the divine coursed through me and visits of angels and too many miraculous events to recount - the penny has dropped.
I set off to find 'god'. Went all over the world, kept on looking under rocks of dirt and in shiny banquets never finding 'it' - now 'it' has dawned - 'it' was in me always. 
There is a word, 'atman' with which Hindus describe 'it' but 'it' is beyond words - 'it' just is and 'it' always will be. 
I feel like Dick Whittington, "it's behind you" 'o no it ain't' 
"it's right in front of you" , 'o no it ain't'
"it is 'you', in 'you' beyond 'you' all the time." 'doh!' 
Ha ha  - here's to The Laughter."

Rick probably has kept in touch in some occult way: Certainly his easy going writing style influenced and educated me in some way - and still does.  

I am so blessed to have had him share so many of his poetry creations with me, and like treasures kept in a drawer it would be criminal were I not to give them an airing now and then.  

Ladies and gentleman, I give you (drum roll) ... 'Something Beautiful'.

Something Beautiful
(god is a song half-heard in the street)

 

a yellow lamplight Friday evening
perfect for a furtive skip-dip -
a kicked-in door, a busted bed head -  
stove-wood to get me through the weekend

from somewhere down the crumbling street
of cardboard window low-rent slums -
overrun with drunks, and druggies
clustering at doors and corners
smoking 'charlie', smoking ‘ganja’-
reverent singing emanated 

I stood at my gate
nodding along with the slap slap
of a drum beat
to a choiring
of prayer and praise 
to the Deity

the psalming faded 
a viscous silence followed

before a bunch of 
bearded guys in long white robes,
bobble hats, and zip-up tops,
feed rattley bikes from rusted rails,
and ghosted into winter fog

a sudden beauty had
entered our street
breathed upon it
and quietly moved on


© Rick Summat (AKA ' Coolhermit') 2020, 2023