beating the alternative

3.28.2025

It would not be much of a universe if it wasn't home to the people you love.

Stephen Hawking

Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash

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There are options. Choices.
Day or winter. Round or silent.
A long tail or a short wait for a table
at a brand new restaurant.
Nothing is as it seems.
Everything is exactly as it seems.
Illusion is quite often the very thing
that is confronting a person in life.
These are not academic poems, friend.
These poor poems are more like
when a raccoon eats the dog food
that is left on the patio.
More like something sticky on your shoe;
What is it? You don't know,
but you tracked in on the rug.
It’s a nice looking rug, your wife's favorite,
she bought it at Sears long ago
when she might have chosen any rug.
That’s the thing, there are options, choices,
and we are all just human beings.
We do the best with it that we can.

jobe

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

Mary Oliver

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You’re writing a poem in the park, it's late afternoon,
and the shadows are long across the grass,
see how they reach from west to east,
resembling old men when they stretch.
It isn't your best poem by a long shot,
but you're giving it the old college try anyway.
Around the open field of this park the trees stand
watching you from above like nervous parents.
You’re at the very edge of the shade, and some children
playing soccer are kicking the ball too close for comfort,
you have a rough poem, but it doesn't make sense,
and you don't know what to call it.
Finally you give up. Stuck for a title, you think,
"One will come to me later, maybe tonight."
And so you close the old, worn out notebook
and start the walk home, moving somewhat
like your grandfather once moved, just a little too slow.
You have become an old man yourself, jobe,
but it beats the alternative.

jobe

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Photo by Eleonora Albasi on Unsplash

The North Window: Bamboo and Rock

A magisterial rock windswept and pure
and a few bamboo so lavish and green:

facing me, they seem full of sincerity.
I gaze into them and can't get enough,

and there's more at the north window
and along the path beside West Pond:

wind sowing bamboo clarities aplenty,
rain gracing the subtle greens of moss.

My wife's still here, frail and old as me,
but no one else: the children are gone.

Leave the window open. If you close it,
who"ll keep us company for the night?

Po Chü-i, China, 772-846 CE

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Ignore those people who want you to explain yourself.

jobe

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Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three.

Elayne Boosler

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Susan Kelly-DeWitt is an old friend, and more — she’s always been a huge influence on me. Some of you who know me might be thinking, “Man, you don’t write at all like Susan.” True that. I have taken her workshop. What I learned the most there was the work ethic needed and better editing. In fact, if you live within driving distance of Sacramento and write, it would be worthwhile to see if she still teaches the workshop. Back then, the workshop was a few weeks long, and everything I wrote there was published somewhere.

The paywall is just below. The rest of today’s post for paid subscribers. Just something to think about. Five bucks a month opens the door. Thanks for reading this; it’s perfectly fine to be a free subscriber.

jobe