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Everyone walks around with a stone in their shoe, my friend GE told me a long time ago, and ever since I’ve thought about that saying, and the rueful way he smiled when he said it. It softens me, when I’m out in the world, to look at everyone I meet as the keepers of secret stories I know nothing about.

There’s a treehouse high in an oak tree where I go in my mind, an imaginary place where nothing bad can reach me, a place I’m always safe. Because I carry a stone or few in my shoes too. Don’t you?

A Portable Paradise, by Roger Robinson

And if I speak of Paradise,
then I’m speaking of my grandmother
who told me to carry it always
on my person, concealed, so
no one else would know but me.
That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.
And if life puts you under pressure,
trace its ridges in your pocket,
smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,
turn its anthem under your breath.
And if your stresses are sustained and daily,
get yourself to an empty room – be it hotel,
hostel or hovel – find a lamp
and empty your paradise onto a desk:
your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.
Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope
of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.

Click here for more information about British poet Roger Robinson.

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