Notes to Self on a Cold Day in May

JO'B. 

Slower, deeper, each breath,

yours and the earth's.

Who do you think you are?

Don't love your life too much,

Mary Oliver wrote,

and vanished into the world.

Aural

JO'B

 

  

 Under the green canopy

   of my 82nd spring,

   Each morning

   more silent

   than the last,

   One dream

   flows into

   the next,

   And then no one,

   and then Tao.

Timelapse

JO'B  

                                                   A certain elegance

                                                   still standing,

                                                   stoic with purpose

                                                   and faith in one's self,

                                                   waiting for the miracle to come

                                                   as the trees overtake us,     

                                                   our graceful surrender,     

                                                   our gorgeous collapse

                                                   enriching the ground     

                                                   where we fall.   

Moonlight Wanderer

JO'B

 

         

I wasn't lonely              

Until you spoke my name              

And now I wonder              

Love in a Time of Covid

JOB

Did you get what you wanted at last,

Convinced all that was fiction at best,

Madness perhaps, a selective contagion,

Virulent to the maimed and the quick?

Blessed be the bi-polar,

Their heaven is upon us.

Do you pretend

You are not molten at the core?

Arc

JO'B. 

                                                       Late in a ride,

                                                       Late in a day,

                                                       Late in a life,

                                                       A deepening sense

                                                       Of gratitude.

"Eighty! I can hardly believe it. I often feel that life is about

to begin, only to realize it's almost over." -- Oliver Sacks

Given the Chance

JO'B  

Stop pushing through

A field of dandelions

Releasing in the wind,

Bow down, and watch

Achenes take flight.

All is not lost just yet.

The earth will heal herself

If the young take up the fight.

 

JO'B  

 

On the Anniversary of My Daughter's Death

Blue cohosh                           (JO'B)

  
                    

                    In the slow, slow unwinding

                    of the year's slowest month,

                    alone in the dripping woods

                    with the blue cohosh rising,

                    how do I sing you

                    the phrases of the moon?

                    Does tomorrow exist

                    as the rain down the glass?

                    Can the fire in the grate

                    absolve us of the future?

                    I listen for hours trying to learn

                    the language of water and flame.

                    Cast beyond the verge,

                    it's all we can do to cry out

                    to one another in the dark,

                    like bats hunting moths

                    in windowlight after a storm,

                    the universe hung in the trees.

 —first published April 28. 2015

Acceptance

JO'B.   

          Let's sit awhile

          and watch the storm come

          Giving in 

          to the influence of wind and rain

          With faith

          in the natural course of things

          even as it overtakes us.

We Cannot Keep

JO'B  

                                                  We lose what we love.

                                                  Peace, then,

                                                  To the broken-hearted,

                                                  Forgiveness, then,

                                                  To the undeserving.

                                                  Listen to the wind,

                                                  Stand in the rain,

                                                  And to us all

                                                  An easy drift

                                                  Beyond the end of change.