Still and Quiet

jo'b  

On the cabin porch in the leaf fall,

still and quiet, so quiet

you hear the last leaf touch down,

so still you imagine you feel

the speed of the planet

as it whips around the sun,

the whole spinning system

hurtling through infinite night,

and to think you come here

because you love to sit on the porch,

just you and the dog, dozing off

as if nothing were happening.

Kingdom Come

Late October morning                     jo'b   

                              After a nightmare

                              the wooded hill

                              is a kingdom of sunlight and fog.

                              Is it warm where you are?

                              I have too much to carry

                              through empty rooms.

 

                              When you get here

                              on the cusp of winter

                              I will show you everything.

                              Something must come of this.

Our October

jo'b   

Lost in a fallow field

of rational neglect,

no one will find us

in the dark maroons

of thorns and vines

but the few true souls

who love us with no explanation,

as we do them,

fallen, forgiven, and stunned.

Welcome, Night

jo'b   

I shut down the splitter, unplug my ears,

and sit on the porch, resting my bones

in what the Scots call the glimmerdim,

a sudden stillness in the dusk, atingle still

with the roar of the saw.

A lone raven flies out of the crimson west,

its wingbeats slow and powerful,

its croak echoing in the woods

as a flood of mist rises from the valley.

The woodshed is nearly filled.

The shadow of the earth engulfs me

as it drifts across the field toward the trees.

I feel the planet roll, I welcome the night,

at peace with the dark in me, knowing

I have but one life, this time through.

I Never Asked for Flight

The moon still rose                  (jo'b)   

I bled for years

and now you're back

but I have changed

there is so much

I need to tell you

so little I can say

I built a life

and tore it down

the sun kept shining

the moon still rose

coyotes screaming

in dark fields

I write it down

the fleeting shadows

of  the hawks

pass over me

I write it down

the thin red fox

crosses the road

from standing corn

to standing corn

the rattle of  the wind

I write it down

the way first snow

touches my skin

and suddenly

is snow no longer

I write it down

I write it down.

—affected by the moods of Ocean Yuong

Big House

jo'b   

 

How strange to be here

in two places at once,

by here I mean on the earth,

on the coast at daybreak

with the wind pouring in off the sea,

 and in this fall mountain field 

watching Orion lead his old dog

out of the dark crowns of oaks

and into the endless universe,

which is my home afterall, 

and yours too,

we live in a big house

with mostly empty rooms,

but we're all alive at the same time,

and we need to take care of each other.

  

Painting the Air

Rain, Steam, and Speed, The Great Western Railway -- J.M.W. Turner, 1844

My valley brims with mist,

mist enough, it seems,

to fill the expanse

between continents.

Home so early?

J.M.W. Turner's housekeeper asked

when the famed English Romantic painter

returned unexpectedly with his easel and brushes

from the banks of The River Thames —

Turner painted the air,

gave tint and tone to the mysteries

of haze and distance –– a mood made visible,

much as a songwriter makes audible

the anguish of yearning

with sustained minor chords

that can set you adrift,

And on this hazy morning in Upper Turkeyfoot,

with you so far and long away,

I know what Turner meant

when he replied, The fog lifted,

and you could see everything,

and there was nothing left to see.

—image from the public domain

Haiku for the Will of the People

Viewing the Bayeux Tapestry     

(Associated Press photo)     

 

Stand together then                         

Against the feudal stitchwork                         

Of our own rash time                         

Not Letting Go

On her rooftop in New York

                                        She came home again

                                        as she sometimes does

                                        in a dream

                                        I tucked her in again

                                        as I sometimes did

                                        home from the office

                                        in the middle of the night

                                        She held onto my collar again

                                        as she sometimes did

                                        looking into my eyes

                                        smiling quietly

                                        not letting go

 

                                        Who's to say what is real

                                        and what is heartache

                                        and which is which

                                        or one and the same?

—for KJO'B (12/13/1970 - 4/28/2008)

Heirs of the Wind

jo'b     

It's helpful to remember

we live in the Age of Insects

and not the Age of Man.

What do you think

a swallowtail thinks?

Third Marriage

jo'b     

 

                                           I reached the cabin in time

                                           to hear the music of a thought,

                                           great grandma's rocker

                                           creaking on the porch boards.

                                            Before twilight faded away

                                            I escaped my own mind.

                                            Ravens croaked in the dusk.

                                            Night flooded the woods.

                                             This time I stayed

                                             because I knew the way back.

                                             The trees made room for the stars.

Tanka at the Equinox

jo'b   

Walking in the field

In the stillness after rain

Jeans soaked to the knees

We found comfort in silence

And peace hung in the balance.

Retrospective

jo'b   

We'll call it autumn                                  

Sudden and sentimental                                  

Giving in to it                                  

 

                                 

Evening in the Thicket

jo'b  

                         Late in the thicket of the soul,

                         where it was slow-going,

                         overgrown with the brambles and vines

                         of common catastrophe,

                         he accepted at last

                         the hard-earned conclusion

                         that he lacked the courage

                         to embrace what he thought

                         he'd always wanted—

                         unconditional love,

                         that uncommon thing—

                         powerful,

                         wounding,

                         and misplaced.

 

I Just Close My Eyes

jo'b  

 

Haven't stood in the sea since before COVID,

but I visit often, I can be there anytime I want

when a southerly wind is sighing in the oaks,

I just close my eyes and listen, I just close my eyes

and hear the rush and wash of the surf at my feet,

I just close my eyes and feel the cold ocean

and the sand between my toes, I just close my eyes

and see the band of Venus over the edge of the earth,

I just close my eyes and feel the salt spray on my cheek

and the sunset on my back, I just close my eyes,

and I sense the warmth and the breath

of the absent souls

that make my heart ache for the sea.

Because It's Still Summer

jo'b     

It's not too late.

Light from the low sun

like a sheet of honey over the fields.

A swarm of dragonflies

hunting over the yard,

after mowing, in the silence,

the rattle and glint of wings.

The feast continues.

We touch each other

to prove we are still here.

Tell me it's not too late.

—with two lines by Ocean Vuong

Solidago Days

jo'b   

Dew-strung and crowned with dawn

no one could find us

in the goldenrod field

as we had wished,

listening to the bees

chanting as they worked,

our pantlegs tucked into our socks

sprayed with Permethrin

against the stark truths of the world.

The Mind Floats Free

Working at the keyboard

the mind floats free

through the kitchen door

and over the fields

 

where last she dreamed

she was picking blackberries

her fingers stained

and where we gave

her ashes to the wind.

Nepal

jo'b     

                    

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.