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The Friday Poem on 12/05/23

We chose ‘Trial and Error’ by Josh Geffin to be our Friday Poem this week because we like the way the poem lays it all out in black and white – the surprise, the doubt, the wilderness. The tone moves from conversational to profound, but always questioning. And the poem moves like the cat, one line at a time, trying the ice, seeing what will hold on the page.

Trial and Error

Sitting cross-legged in a small room 
opposite a Zen Master – no shit –
I say I’m not sure what I should be doing,
I don’t know what my calling is.

Smiling unconditionally,
he tells me a Japanese proverb:
a cat on ice extends his paw
to see if the ice will break or hold.

Hmm, seems okay,
(he’s mimicking a cat padding around),
I think I’ll try my other paw …
and so on and so forth.

Imagine it, snow-blown Japan,
a huge frozen lake
surrounded by a wilderness of cedars
and a house cat strayed

from some nearby monastery,
tiny and black in the vast white,
stretching out that paw to check the ice,
going who knows where, or turning back.

Josh Geffin is a musician and writer based in London currently studying a Masters in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London. His poetry explores themes of attention, humour and memory. He has been published in The Rialto magazine and his music has been used on Netflix, BBC, and Channel 4. He is also a certified mindfulness teacher and has taught sessions at Paramount Pictures, WeWork and London South Bank University.

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