Back from the City

jo'b

Back from the city

Riding 'til the fireflies rise

Closer to heaven

Out of the Fire

jo'b

 Then I watched her go

 Centripetal adagio

 Nested in the dew         

Room

click to expand - jo'b

The dignity            

of open space.      

The value              

of the long view.   

Graves Beside the Trail

Detail of a photo illustration by Ashley Z.Boon

Swallows banked and dove

over the abandoned field

steeped in briars and asters

tall as the family stones

children and spouses

slowly eroding.

The stones shared an age

in evening's pall—

nineteen twice.

We stopped to watch

as if we wouldn't forget.

Uno vida. Uno vida.

Near the Salisbury Viaduct on The Great Allegheny Passage - jo'b

In the Void

jo'b

no human sound

night crawls out of the woods

you did what you could

you tell yourself

expanding with the dark

Undertow

Duck, NC, 10/14/14 - jo'b

Did you feel it 

in your heart  

the warming tides 

that pull us out 

the swells 

that lift us up 

unable to touch bottom 

and how much longer 

can we swim 

parallel to shore ? 

Desire

jo'b

Some nights                    

are longer                    

Some hearts                    

never rest                    

Thunderheads

View from the center - jo'b

  

The day was my mandala.

I began at the perimeter

and worked my way in,

first light like a ghost

in the woods to the east,

last light like coals

behind Laurel Ridge.

At the center I sat on the hill,

the dog snuffling deep in the field

where goldenrod shook,

swallows diving and looping above us.

Awe billowed into the sky.

Limned as the towering clouds,

I sat with a life at my back.

I wasn't alone.