Art is theft.
Pablo Picasso
110 degrees. August. The valley bakes
Like a loaf of bread in a brick oven.
Tomorrow is a whisper and today is sweat.
Standing under a harsh sun,
I say my name aloud
To remind the valley of who I am,
And who I am not.
-jobe
Life is the flower for which love is the honey.
Victor Hugo
photo by jobe
Hanshan on Cold Mountain. Meditation,
poems, and laughter. The winter wind on
the surface of the frozen snow.
-jobe
(Hanshan was a Chinese Buddhist/Taoist poet and hermit sometime during the Tang Dynasty. We think. It’s a bit hard to be sure. His name means Cold Mountain, which is where he lived.)
Climbing up the Cold Mountain
Clambering up the Cold Mountain path,
The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on:
The long gorge choked with scree and boulders,
The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass.
The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain
The pine sings, but there's no wind.
Who can leap the world's ties
And sit with me among the white clouds?
Hanshan
art by john lennon
her face could be so incredibly sad.Â
for nena, 1927 -2013Â Â Â
she carried her disappointment in the roundnessÂ
of her face, in the deep, dark hollows of her eyes.Â
and then, if she laughed, the stars came outÂ
to enrich the discomfort you felt at her suffering.Â
happiness. sorrow. like flipping a light switch.Â
and she worried, often very late into the night;
she would pace the floor and wring her hands,Â
and peek out from behind the curtains as ifÂ
the answer was hiding outside in the darkness.Â
but that face -Â so worried, for so many long years.Â
i felt that i never pleased her, that i had failedÂ
as a son somehow, although i deeply loved her,Â
and told her so everyday. when she was dyingÂ
i was trying to get home, to be with her.Â
she slipped away when i was halfway home,Â
nena was often impatient like that. well, always.
my sister got me on my phone as i changed planesÂ
and i told nena that i her loved her one final time,Â
in fact, those were the last words that she heardÂ
here on the mortal plane. she whispered back,Â
"love." just that, and then my mother shook offÂ
the weight of her body and rose up, escapingÂ
to that which awaits us all, eventually.Â
jobe
Hold yourself as a mother would hold her beloved child.
Buddha (In my mind I call him Bud.)
Ingmar Bergman’s Seventh Seal / Robert Duncan
The only poem I can write / Helene Achanzar
Today is the first that it feels like fall. Fall officially began a few weeks, the equinox was in the third week of September as it always is. Daylight and night in an equal amount. Today is October 16th, and we still had high temperatures in the nineties until a few days, and then a string of eighties. I would point out for those who live elsewhere that our summers are long and dry, a summer rain is rare. This morning we had some drizzle, and it’s cloudy and cool. I have no doubt that the sun will shine by afternoon and we will still achieve a high in the seventies, but now, at 9am, it is chilly and damp, and I heard a couple of geese passing overhead, announcing themselves. It is fall in California’s Big Central Valley. I’m calling it. Cheers and thanks for reading this. You can subscribe below, for free if you wish.
All Good Things,
james