Zen

I read in a book
that zen is
eating your rice and
washing up your bowl.

I didn’t understand that then

Because I thought that love
was only contained within
romantic gestures.

In starlit walks, slow dances
and romantic city breaks to the
hotel with the highest rating on tripadvisor.

But now, as I sit alone
in this empty kitchen,
I realise that you were right:

that love makes its home in every moment
in the simplest of daily activities,

in the folding of a t-shirt,
in the watering of a plant,
in the buttering of a sandwich right to the edge,
and in those few stolen moments before lights out

love, over the years
you eroded yourself into my heart,
in ways I hardly even noticed
like water over rock,
and the pattern you left
will be in me always