Nepal

                    

Another thousand sunsets               

                    in my feed               

                    May the Earth survive               

                    our extinction               

 

Unsettled Time

                              It's been a long time

                              since time

                              driving backward from the capital

                              living in reverse

                              returning

                              to the shade of the woods

                              sibylline leaves tumbling

                              up to their branches

                              raptors overhead

                              northward tail-first drifting

                              September going clear

                              and blue again

                              our souls intact

                              at the edge of consequence.

—with two lines by Ocean Vuong

Old Friends in Late Summer

                                  Speak to me of change

                                   and I will listen,

                                   both of us

                                   steadying ourselves.

                                   No one else is coming.

The Volatility of Consciousness

jo'b   

Grass mowed,

I fell asleep

in a chair by the well

and awoke with the sky in my eyes,

realizing as if for the first time

I'd never see her again—

one moment we were discussing

Yeats and elderberries, and the next

I was alone on a dirt road

in a nest of modified illusions,

facing the savage god of the future—

but it was only the FedEx driver

pounding down the road,

raising yellow dust.

Too Much to Think About

jo'b   

It is needful

to have night

in one's body.

It is hurtful

to be right.

—Robinson Jeffers was right.

Reading Robert Lowell at Night

jo'b   

               Nights are troubled times—

               faint visitors unbidden,

               wraiths, the should-have-beens,

               await to meet me in my dreams.

               I am too much alone,

               too unforgiving of myself—

               soft music fills the void,

               and reading sometimes helps—

               Sometimes my mind's not right,

               as Robert Lowell confessed,

               but still I would not say

               that I myself am hell—

               Quickly yet how in the dark

               I'm back in my childhood bed,

               pillow wrapped around my head

               to keep the shouting out,

               the insults and the breaking glass,

               the one-man show at 3 a.m.

               In the great relief of sunrise,

               soundly in first light I sleep—

               late to bed, and late to rise

               keeps this man healthy—

               if not wealthy. if not wise.

Ever the Wind

jo'b    

The stumbled path you took

the tides and reversals

that left no footprints

the piers you built into deep water

wrecked by storms

blue time undoing everything

You thought... what is hope anyway

gulls crying in sunlight

the glittering swells of the sea

the thud and crash

of surf and vision

a walk on an empty beach?

In the Glistening

jo'b   

             In the glistening autumnal side of summer

             I am expecting better hours.

             I smell the cornfield.

             I hear the pear drop.

             I see bats in the dusk

             flying at the edge of the woods.

             The moon is my only companion.

             The cricket, the gurgling spring,

             the wind rising in the trees,

             all speak to me

             of the steady progress

             of the universe,

             and I am rewarded

             for mere expectation.

—Drawn from The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau over four Augusts, 1851-54.

Here Come the Cows

                                                                                                     jo'b

Here come the cows,

swinging their heavy heads

in disapproval, as curious

about us as we are about them,

about the one that comes to the wire

with her wet nostrils and her flies.

If she knew what a man thinks

she'd run for her life,

and so would we.

Perseids

Acadia National Park, Maine   (Jack Fusco photo)

               Fellow creature

               of no consequence,

               what we said as we rode

               through the tail of the comet,

               among the billions of billions,

               what we said to each other

               meant everything

               for an instant.

Fisherman

                                                                                jo'b     

            In the sea was a bass,

            and I was on the shore

            with my heart in my chest,

            the clouds above me, and she

            was in New York forever,

             and I, casting and reeling.

                                                                   —inspired by a Jim Harrison poem

                                        

Even So

                                                               jo'b   

                         I have traveled far

                         in my own country,

                         this yard,

                         this overgrown field,

                         these woods behind and deep,

                         full of shadows,

                         where I can cry out,

                         and no one will hear,

                         under this smothering sky.

                         Maranatha.

Mystics

                                                  Click to enlarge                                   jo'b

             

               Stopped on a hilltop

               by the wonders of evening,

               I'm thinking of you, too,

               though we would never say so.

               It could be true if we were bolder—

               All the way to heaven is heaven.

                                             —with words by Catherine of Siena, 14th C. Catholic mystic

Descendants

                                                                                                                                   jo'b  

They have left again for Michigan,

and the yard returns to emptiness,

a ringing vacancy

in the gilded air of sunset,

anticipation replaced by longing

among abandoned chairs

still set up in the grass.

Above the woods in silhouette,

young blackbirds gather and rise,

flocking and strengthening

for their necessary migration

over ripened fields.

On the Cabin Porch Among Trees

As August begins                               jo'b   

                    The wind overhead

                    moves through the circling crowns,

                    leaf shadows drift on the great trunks

                    that are shifting their weight from foot to foot,

                    everything moving as far as we can see,

                    shifting in a wind that brings rain.

                    We, too, are shifting, you and me,

                    drifting on our inner tides

                    of wonder and change.

                    The universe in constant motion

                    renders stillness holy,

                    above us, the sound of the sea,

                    the rush of existence, the earth sound.

                    Let's just sit here in silence for awhile.

The Moon Again

jo'b   

The moon again

making an appearance

here to let us know

sometimes love returns.

Stand and cast a shadow.

The Difference

jo'b   

The birch by the gate,

you've passed it a hundred times in a week,

then someone tells you they care,

and the branch becomes stunningly new.

Those were the days.

Wistful Thinking

In the Zufall Cut                                (jo'b)    

                  You can feel it,

                  a shift

                  deep in the shadows

                  where the wild things reach for the sun,

                  deep in the thickening sky,

                  splendid and silent,

                  deep in the deep heart's core

                  where human compassion lies,

                  or is it only wistful thinking,

                  a common earthborn stasis,

                  deeper at the end of July?

Blooms in the Wasteplaces

jo'b   

And  I stand and watch your taillights

go over the hill for the last time,

Trying to decide if what I feel

is freedom or loss, when it is both.

The chickory has never been more vivid.

Old and Broken-Hearted

jo'b   

Monochrome, my days

Alone among the others,

Lovers lost in grays.

Hearts of Space

jo'b   

Our burning minds

Were the center

Of  the universe

Our double spiral

Our warp in time

Our supernova

Birds on a Wire

Click to expand.    (jo'b)   

Like parallel contrails,

blown this way and that by our times,

we may never meet,

But we each have our songs,

like birds on a wire,

birdsong and windsong,

and thoughts are songs, too,

And typed lines are songs,

so sing to me then,

and I'll sing to you.

Message rates may apply.

 

Organic

 

jo'b.  

Hilltop where the fields are not sprayed

where sheep graze and swallows weave

where the wind blows and neighbors wave

where children run and laugh in the wind-rows

and know a kestral by its hover

where sometimes near sunset

there's not another human sound

but your own heart clenching

and the hum of the universe in your head

and there's peace on earth

peace on earth

and you wish it could last.

Lunarians

jo'b   

And when the old moon

Floated up out of the oaks

We were young again

Town Can Wait

jo'b   

Corn in tassel 

We smell it after rain

A breeze rolls over in the trees

And sends another shower down

We put off our trip to town

Ancestral: As Lost as Before

Plural was never to be

in our syllable of time

our brief melody

violins in a gale

on cliffs overlooking the sea

                         Clannad cover (top), Cliffs of Moher, County Clare, Ireland (bottom)

Smoke

jo'b   

 

We once found our balance

on the cusp of evening

as the light failed

and mist rose from the valley.

Today we wait inside

for the wind to shift,

and we listen

for the whimper.

.

—channeling T.S. Eliot

Teacher

Click to enlarge.         jo'b   

                    She does her work

                    and waits,

                    just outside the frame.

                  

                    She does her work

                    And waits alone.

                    I learn from that.

Sci-Fi

edited from the public domain   

 

 

Get her to the coast,                    

my loyal friend.                   

A ship awaits.                   

                   

The strength of our mixed blood                    

shall thrive, and once again,                    

may kindness reign.                    

Fortune Teller

(from the public domain)   

 

Mostly nobody answers.

I took shelter in my bones.

Days passed. The sound of rain.

Whether she has gone or if she was ever here.

Who among us is the enemy of water?

Reality is mutable and strange. 

A hawk cries overhead. Trees stir.

It isn't up to us.

Mist after Rain

jo'b     

Dripping maples and oaks.

A raven calls.

The soul settles for an hour or two.

The Wind has Died

A.I.     

                              

                              My little boat,

                              Take care.

                              There is no

                              Land in sight.

                                                       — Charles Simic (1938-2023)

No Land in Sight, New York, Knopf, 2022 

Copyright, 2022, Charles Simic

Radio Zen

Summer in its second movement.                               jo'b   

I let it play softly

in my hip pocket,

strings and flutes,

maybe an oboe,

sustained notes,

interstellar melodies,

universal hums,

it keeps me calm

so I can focus

on the temporary joys,

(and aren't they all)

blackbirds rising from the wire

in modest murmuration,

a weave of swallows,

the toad in porchlight

at the kitchen door,

maple leaves turning over,

thunderheads building

and the wind rising—

summer in its second movement,

me in my fourth, softly.

Hemlock Trail

jo'b     

A cloud is on the mountain,

a divinity of mist

in the last few acres

of virgin forest.

I have kept my promise,

but nothing comes.

What is the difference

if not love?

Elemental

jo'b   

 

Lost for a moment

in the depth of a lily

and you to tell

Sunset on a Hilltop

jo'b   

               Warm and cool

               the veins of air we passed through

               down from the hill

               where we had seen the last ridge

               rise to cover the sun

               as we rolled back

               into the shadow of the earth.

               There was nothing else to say.

               It felt like forever,

               heading home,

               long ago.

Heat Stroke

jo'b    

I hung a sheet to block the sun        

A veil across the day        

In my steadying loneliness        

Diaphanous my dreaming now       

       

To savor my defeats       

Swimmers

jo'b   

 

                   I swim

                   in the richness of July

                   against the undertow

                   of time.