Portal

jo'b

                                                Three parts light

                                                and one part night

                                                the broken pane

                                                of dreams

                                                The past

                                                breathing in that dark

                                                like an animal

                                                chained to its stall

January Thaw

jo'b

Pausing by the pond                              

in this jagged world                              

to thaw my fears                              

and watch the sky                              

slide out from under ice,                              

looking up                              

by looking down.                              

Sunset in Winter

jo'b

                    A lower light

                    gathers at the waist

                    of earth and sky

                    Brutal in its stillness

                    when the wind dies

                    A beauty so intense

                    we feel our losses

                    more and more

Heartsick

jo'b

This way                        

old friend                        

if you're still willing                        

we'll call it a triumph                       

of memory                       

Writing by Candlelight in an Icestorm

jo'b

          

Night masked an ill wind     

That kicked in the cabin door     

And murdered the light     

Sky

jo'b

I never tire

of looking at the sky

for surely that's where she went

she who is lighter than air

which is why the Irish

leave the window open

to make it easier

for all

All Perfecto and No Bike

jo'b

He sold his eighth and last motorcycle

after a spill — third time down

in fifty years — a concession to age,

and to circumstance — but he kept the jacket.

He thought he could fight off time,

and desire, and the need to be loved,

but each time the weather cleared

and the sun warmed his back,

he felt it again — the wild urge, the thrill

of speed, of freedom, of living,

and, oh, to go down swinging.

— An aphorism among riders: There are only two kinds — those

who have been down, and those who are going down.

Incantation

jo'b

I spoke your name                    

To the rising Wolf Moon                    

And I wait                    

Elegy in the Dark

jo'b

Awake again

in the deep night of winter,

watching the storm.

Darkness swallows light.

I can't see the field, but I know

it's there, under snow in the dark,

the field where my children ran

with sunlight in their hair.

Like the fallen goldenrod

buried in snow, like the young

bare maples sighing with wind,

I, too, am rooted in the dark,

Soon to take my place

among the ended promises

of these few fallow acres

mistaken for paradise.

Harsh Winter Haiku

A path through fresh snow                

To the mailbox is enough                

For deliverance                

Seeing Sally Mann: A Progression

   Photographer Sally Mann near Lexington, Virginia  (Erinn Springer for the NYT)
Please click photo to enlarge.

We stood in long silence

Facing her bravery

The nameless abstractions

Quirks of an antique process

Her first way of seeing

Then the avalanche

A photograph is two things:

What it says to the world

And what it says to you

We've built too close to the river

The next flood will take us as well

–– With extractions from a Walker Mimms interview

with the photographer Sally Mann, published

in the New York Times, September, 2025.

Primitive

Edited from the public domain

 

Trapped in the time loop          

as the numbers turn over          

kneeling to the flame