December Moon

jo'b

Moon of the long arc          

Teach us the strength of silence          

Certain and tidal          

A Winter Heart

Click to enlarge.                              jo'b

I would speak my drifting heart,

But something's in the way,

A caution in the spinning wind,

Something's in the way,

December's moon, its long, high arc,

Something tidal in its wake,

Reticence my saving grace,

Yet something's in the way.

Snow on the Pond

—jo'b

 

How quiet when the wind dies.

We stand at the pond watching

as a light snow falls and vanishes

into the sky at our feet.

You smile in silence

as if we already have a secret.

It's heartbreaking

that we don't.

Sacred Ground

Bones, nothing but bones,   

The hill is nothing but bones,   

Bones and wet ashes.   

 

Those Few

jo'b

Warm sun and cold wind

At the end of November

In the time of gathering,

Those few who know us best,

Those few who knew us then,

Those few who love us still,

Each with our own vague regret,

The warmth of those few

Blocking the wind.

Overcast, Untethered

jo'b

Fading light                                                    

Dissolving hills                                              

Edges ill-defined                                            

Yesterday                            

   Tomorrow                          

The imaginary present       

Touch me so I know you're real                    

If only for a moment         

November Woods

jo'b

Deep enough into the trees,

to where the wind doesn't reach me,

finding the calm

I've sought since childhood

among their heavy shoulders,

away from the shouting,

how they stand over me

circling gently high up,

reaching into the light,

finding at eight

a hint of paradise,

and now I am eighty,

and it is still the same,

deep enough into the trees.

—after Mary Oliver's "Black Oaks"

Late Affection

jo'b

We don't have much time          

We won't change each other          

But we will be moved          

Ultramarine

Porpoise Bay, Maine (jo'b)

I've said too much

And wrecked the music

Of our collapsing shore

Bring your silence too

Perhaps we'll know

Deep silver water

Perhaps we'll lift

On rising tides

Thick with debris

It's hard to say

And yet how strange

To not want more

Wind in the Oaks

jo'b

Wind high up in the oaks

where it still has a voice,

change preceding change

under a scattered sky

on a finger-cold day,

sentient beings on the ground

trying to love their lives,

more than a few fully conscious

of their own rarity in the universe,

hurtling through the void,

grateful for the miracle of each other

and a warm hand to hold,

hearing the wind in the oaks,

and knowing this is a sacred thing.

First Snow

from the public domain

I turn off the game

and listen to the wind.

The rain tapers off

and the snow begins.

I stand at the sink

and watch it fly

swirling in the yardlight,

first of the season

and like it never left.

In the long solitude of evening

nothing seems more important.

I had stopped by to see you

but you were just leaving.

We waved to each other

behind windshields.

I turn off the yardlight

and climb the stairs to bed.

The wind sings me to sleep.

I meet you there.

It's best this way.

The Consolations of November

jo'b

 

Sodden, stubbled fields       

Mist drifting in the hollows       

The beauty of loss       

Somehow

We're still here somehow

Together in this sweet line

You and me and time

 

Vespers

jo'b

Stopping to listen

To the evening's promises

Earth and sky music

The Search

jo'b

A haunted poet               

By the rising of the moon               

Walks the dying field               

Falling Back

jo'b

Wind huffs in the flue      

The woodstove ticking with heat      

We observe our thoughts      

Given

jo'b

Give us then

the pleasure of the curve,

the smooth arc, the unbroken line,

the bend of the oval, the shape of the egg,

the flow of the day, the trajectory of our lives

as we orbit each other, innately in love with

our tangents and intersections, and with

 the heft of original minds, sailing

through an empty, spiraling

universe, ever smaller,

no less complex,

on our glide

into the vanishing point

.

Tribal

jo'b

          The trees

          Do not object

          To being in this dream

          Unconcerned

          With distances and time

          Their roots entwined

Streaming Wind, Busy Sky, Flashing Sun

—jo'b

 Too long in the house          

The high art of October          

Just beyond the door          

Early Morning Mist

—jo'b

Just after sunrise

hooded apparition

the bed still warm

the field strung with dew

awaiting your return

which always only just begins

not ready yet

for the full face of day

savoring this ache

the closest thing to love

I should have suffered more

when we were lonely

on this earth together

just before sunset.

Lou Reed Considers the Universe

jo'b

Looking up through a beech tree

at the edge of a field

solitude enough

to consider infinity

and not find it ridiculous,

I mean all of it, everything,

infinitely small, infinitely big,

endless in all directions,

except for you and me,

baby.

Galaxy Messier 51, the Whirlpool, 31 million lightyears away. Stars are formed in its arms. As seen by the Hubble Telescope. (NASA)

Universal Gravity

NASA

Astral friend, take care.

Attraction draws us closer,

Orbiting our star.

A Pure Thing

A love unspoken              

Light of the pointed moon              

Rising late and fine              

 

The Woods

I went to the woods

With many questions.

Most were not answered.

Seven Cords

jo'b

Twang of the long spring

And the screen door's downbeat,

A choir of geese, loud and low

Above the baring crowns,

Mission rocker creaking oak

To hush this weary body down,

Woodshed filled for the dog and me,

So let the fall be done,

Coyotes yipping in the dark,

So let the winter come.

Spherical

jo'b

Nobody in sight, no road and no structure,

no right angles, no plumb and no level,

just a few flowing lines in fading starlight,

just a soft wind over unbroken horizons,

just you and just me in a continuous present,

no future, no past, immortal for a moment,

our brief eternity.

Heating Season

October Moon    —jo'b

We belonged to the moon

and barely survived it

before they taught us

the iron distances of time.

Another winter comes around,

I wonder how you've changed.

Fiction flares in the dark.

I build fire, after fire, after fire.

Just After Sunset

East

The Belt of Venus

surrounds us from the east

just above the rising shadow

of the earth

we believe

the beauty of the world

will sustain us

waiting in stillness

amid the reality of time

From a Hillltop

—jo'b

We came to know

All we wanted

Was silence

The Path That Connects Us

— jo'b

You go on ahead

I'll stay behind

Unless you want to climb

Through this broken window

Into the blur of fall.

Interstellar

jo'b

  

Circling the sun, endlessly spinning

in infinite night, searching for others,

others like us, like us but better,

searching for life more advanced,

wiser and kinder, rational and peaceful—

such is our hope.

So much empty space,

cold and dark between fires—

yet surely, surely,

from what we know of infinity,

others surely exist, those are the odds—

 but lifetimes, lifetimes to reach.

May we be what we seek,

endlessly spinning, searching

for others like us, if only

just down the road, wiser

and kinder, circling the sun—

alone together, for now.

Making It Count

— jo'b

  How briefly

  we flare

  on this old earth,

  How quickly

  our tracks

  fade behind us.

In Late September

— jo'b

In late September

when everything already

is more than enough

I go to the woods

vivid after rain

sweeter for the cool

pursed lips of the wind

deeper for the kindnesses

of people I love

richer for the fallen years

that spice the tiled ground

these few shining acres

this immense quiet

this brief recurring ecstasy.

 

Skyward

jo'b

                    Flat on the ground

                    under the billow and drift,

                    losing my grip on the earth,

                    consciousness rising as heat,

                    scattered galactic,

                    knowing for an instant

                    the freedom and release

                    of going atomic,

                    levitational peace,

                    recombinant.

Afield, IRL*

jo'b

                        It's simple really.

                        I walk the field.

                        I write my lines.

                        Orion leaps from the woods

                        And over the world.

                        I bolt the door.

* — Social media parlance for "In Real Life," as opposed to digital life.

Inspired by a quote from J.D. Salinger's "A Boy in France."

Homesteaders

jo'b

Our windows have been broken out                    

For nearly forty years                    

The wind blows through us                    

And the snow slants in                    

Each winter colder than the last                   

We don't need a forecast                   

Yet some of us stay on                   

Anchored by sunsets and ashes                   

Om

jo'b

  Out of black crowns

  Harmonics rising

  The vibrating moon

  Sanguine and whole

  Struck like a tuning fork

  An old man in shadow

  Tries to get it down

  Waning in indigo.

  

When

jo'b

Then walk the beach at sunrise

Wounded soul

Where there is no sea

Hindus and Buddhists

jo'b

We sat in silence side-by-side

and watched the sea collapsing on the bar,

and felt its strength,  

but dared not say its name,

accepting age and circumstance

and deep respect — too late for us.

Yet the tides that moved us then,

they move us still, on our separate hilltops,

clouds expanding over the valley,

ridge-to-ridge in this inverted world.

And if, as Hindus and Buddhists believe,

if there is a Next, I'll look for you,

and side-by-side we'll sit again

and feel this old earth roll.

The Way We Are

jo'b

 

The hard angles of reason

Acute in this billowing world

Where our hearts cloud our minds,

Our beautiful flaw.

Beyond the News

jo'b

  

Shaking off the apprehensions of the night

I step outside into the breath of morning,

crows croaking in a grounded cloud,

walnuts dropping in the yard,

beyond the news

in cooler mists and shorter days

with all the screens gone dark.

Or so I think.

My Country:: Version I

jo'b

Cloud and hill

     a place to stand

          head in the sky

               believing in the wind

                    that depth of sound

                    that force of consciousness

               still here

          still uncertain

     still waiting

for the miracle to come.

My Country: Version II

jo'b

 

Cloud and hill

a place to stand

believing

in the wind

waiting for

the miracle

to end.

Revelation No. 9

Brush & Ink Watercolor. Andre Pempvåc

The chickens

stalked about the room

like members of the family.

They stood and looked me in the eye.

They pecked my shoe.

Such is art.

—With a found poem from The Journal of Henry David Thoreau, August 8, 1845