an old house that needs repair
good strong coffee and fresh baked bread
I am too tired to care
about what everything means anymore
simple things are enough
laughing with my wife
walking in the park at sunset
while the old pines bend from the wind
good strong coffee and fresh baked bread
that’s meaning enough
-jobe
I like coffee because it gives me the illusion that I might be awake.
-Lewis Black
a mother and father with their child on a leash
dirty windows on an old house that needs repair
a fallow field
the creek
as muddy as my life
widens across a flat lowland
and my life widens as well
finally
from this creek I emerge
-jobe
Cross the creek on the stepping stones of your failures.
-Jerry Spinelli
my son
when you died
even the sacramento river became still
with empty eyes I watch
waiting for the river to flow once again
silence is my only balm
-jobe
Silence is a true friend who never betrays.
-Confucius
Bullpen, a poem by Cornelius Eady
Raspberries, a poem by Joseph O. Legaspi
An old poem for my wife. This video is from 2011, the poem is from the late 80s. I think. (Still together.)
A ghazal by Robert Bly:
Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose's wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.
If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.
Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.
Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.
Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.
People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.
Robert Bly (1926-2021)
This poet taught me so much. I got to meet him 28 years ago. I had been editing a ‘little,’ a digest sized, saddle-stapled poetry monthly called One Dog Press, which as a dimwit, I typed the name as one(dog)press. This was just before Everything was online. I had tracked down Bly’s address and mailed them to him. He never wrote back. I didn’t know if he actually got them, an issue a month, maybe 20 poems in each one, and usually by poets in my community. So I went to this James Wright Poetry Festival at the Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California. It was one of those wealthy enclaves where if you are very good and very rich, you get to go there when you die. There was a wine reception that I didn’t pay for, but attended anyway. I’m like that. Bly signed my copy of Silence In The Snowy Field.
"Who do I make this out to?”
”James Lee Jobe.”
“Hey! Are you the guy who sends me all the dog stuff?”
“I am.”
“Well, you made a good start, kid (I was 40), now run like hell!”
I had also sent the same stuff to Gary Snyder, most of Northern California seems to know where he lives, and he responded with a letter and a check to subscribe. I framed them both. I hope not cashing the ten dollar check didn’t screw up his accounting.
Hello, Campers.
My plan for The Book Of Jobe, eventually, is two posts a week, maybe three. One or two will be for the paid subscribers, and one will be for free subscribers, which will also go to the paid subscribers. For now, everything goes to everyone, while I learn how to properly set this up. And I’m an aging luddite baby boomer, so this beginning might take a little while. I hope some of you will ‘upgrade to paid’ anyway.
May this post find you well and at peace.
jobe