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| 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.
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| 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.
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| jo'b |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| jo'b |
to have night
in one's body.
It is hurtful
to be right.
—Robinson Jeffers was right.
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| jo'b |
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.
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| jo'b |
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,
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.
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| 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.
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| jo'b |
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| jo'b |
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.
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| Click to enlarge jo'b |
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| jo'b |
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| As August begins jo'b |
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.
