American Fire

From the public domain

Screams of the mothers             

echo through these hills             

not so far away             

from the women searching             

through the rubble of a school             

for their murdered daughters             

finding them             

not so far away             

from this field full of robins             

in this naked scenery of March            

suddenly drying in a pitiless wind             

soon to burn             

lovesick for awhile if we're lucky             

soon to burn             

—After a Tomahawk missile struck Shajaareh Tayyabeh Primary School 

in Minab, Iran, at the beginning of "Trump's War" on February 28, 2026

Waiting Out the Storm

JO'B

A cold rain blows in              

Chilled in an abandoned barn              

Sheltering with ghosts              

The Longevity of the Local

JO'B

 

Still standing

in evening shadows

Night pours in

through broken windows

Built to last

on the ground we grew on

Memory's Hill

JO'B

                    The trees are streaked with rain,

                    Ribbons of sky ripple in the ditches,

                    I move through the visible world

                    No longer expecting someone present,

                    The people I have loved

                    Lined up over memory's hill

                    Stretching back into the mist,

                    And it's enough to know

                    Most of them loved me back,

                    Once upon a time.

Hindsight

JO'B

 

The subtle tones               

intrigue me most,               

would that I had been so.               

Nightwalker

keep on                           

my soul                           

no other light                           

 

A Life in the Mountains

from the public domain

A diffusion of rain.          

I walk the woods without shadows.          

The war goes on.          

I live among deer.          

I wondered if sparrows no longer twittered.          

Then I realized I was going deaf.          

I wrote a poem of three lines.          

That was all I had to say.          

I must finish the chicken coop.          

They're knocking plates off the table.          

The body grows weaker.          

But gazing at the mountains stays the same.          

Thirty years since I've seen you.          

And I still see your tail lights going over the hill.          

The mind moves as slowly as a cloud.          

But a cloud moves on.          

                              —adapted from The Life of Tu Fu (712-770,AD), gleaned from his poems and translated by Eliot Weinberger, New Directions, 2024.

The Legend of Magic Water

jo'b

                   

The wind I see you there                    

That shakes the hemlock arms                    

And fells the paper birch                    

Across the melting drifts                    

The mists I hear you close                    

That sleep among the trees                    

Ascending in the trunks                    

The gaze you touched me with                   

A light that brings the flood                   

On sugar sugar days                   

A rising of the blood                   

The Comforts of Winter

jo'b

         

                    Now with enough

                    firewood to burn

                    until swallows

                    weave over the field,

                    seasoned cherry and oak

                    burning hot and slow

                    with a few unexpected sparks,

                    like the love of old friends.          

—for GK and JK

The Tao of Today

jo'b

                          Today I shall try to think

                          of the small as big

                          and of the few as many,

                          practicing eternity

                          while I am unwinding

                          somewhere in between.

—after a poem by Philip Schultz