I listen to my heart

thumping its muffled rhythm;

listen to the ambience

of the room

and the low hum from the engines

of morning machines

on the distant motorway

stretching far into the dawn

I keep a dedicated place

for meditation

in a room on the east side

of the apartment, a.k.a. the retreat

I lie back on my bed

in a room facing west,

a.k.a. the bedroom or the study,

envisioning my place of meditation

out east,

just a snaking motion away,

through living room and kitchen

This house,

with tenants in each apartment,

lies north-south

on an elevation on the outskirts of town,

once upon a time occupied by a farm

with all the farm houses characteristic

of such a venture,

now only remembered, if even that,

by the name it has left for the area,

moving effortlessly with the planet,

rolling around its tilting axis

and the star,

and on a grander scale,

with the galaxy,

225 million years per revolution