dreams that I love more than diamonds
6.6.2025
What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?
Vincent Van Gogh
breathe jobe breathe
breath is life
like the cactus flower that lives just one day
we are moving toward death with every second that passes
we do not die because of illness or violence or old age
we die because we were born
breath is life
every breath
jobe
Sometimes you just gotta let that shit go.
Eminem
When all the shrubs
have darkened like hair
a yellow dog is there
tumbling in the snow
Miyazawa Kenji
Before we know words there are sights and sounds to hold. Moonlight. Crickets. A smile. Smells, too. Dinner cooking. The perfume of plants. Why am I a poet?
jobe
Are you casting asparagus on my cooking?
Curly Howard (Jerome Horwitz) 1903—1952
The creek said You come here often
but you never introduce yourself
and yet I have told you
everything
“jobe” I said
“my name is jobe”
and I turned and went
back up the pebbled bank
to my life
jobe
I love the dawn and the dusk, the starlight and the moonlight. I love the wind and I love the stillness. And I love that which is, and I try not to desire that which is not. Another day is here, and all I need to do is live it.
jobe
We fear death, we shudder at life’s instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do.
Hermann Hesse
We die, and go under the ground,
Then one day we are the ground.
Or perhaps our ashes are put in the river,
Then one day we are the river.
That’s what heaven is.
There doesn’t have to be an afterlife
For us to go on.
Brother, sister, we are the universe.
jobe
Not Just Passing
Yesterday, a star said
to the little light in my heart,
We are not just transients
passing.
Do not die. Beneath this glow
some wanderers go on
walking.
You were first created out of love,
so carry nothing but love
to those who are trembling.
One day, all gardens sprouted
from our names, from what remained
of hearts yearning.
And since it came of age, this ancient language
has taught us how to heal others
with our longing,
how to be a heavenly scent
to relax their tightening lungs: a welcome sigh,
a gasp of oxygen.
Softly, we pass over wounds,
like purposeful gauze, a hint of relief,
an aspirin.
O little light in me, don’t die,
even if all the galaxies of the world
close in.
O little light in me, say:
Enter my heart in peace.
All of you, come in!
Hiba Abu Nada 1991—2023
Note: This Palestinian poet, Hiba Abu Nada,
was killed in her home in the Gaza Strip by an Israeli airstrike.
in a womb
in a cradle
a bed
a coffin
we all need some rest
jobe
old blues songs played through ear buds
homemade pizza and cafe con leche
reading sutra and writing poems
watching thin branches on the privet wiggle in the breeze
dreams that I love more than diamonds
dreams that make me hurry off to sleep
jobe
A fool and his money are soon elected.
Will Rogers
our house is a planet
orbiting a sun that loves us
this room is a small treasure
that we keep for ourselves
here
lie down next to me
we will hold each other again
and speak quietly
of those things that we love
meals together
the children that are now adults
years that were moments
and moments that were years
our faces are now maps of the lives
that became one life
together
we buried the generation that came before us
and we taught what we could
to the generation that came after
one child we buried together
that’s a marriage
that's a family
we did that
our house is a planet
orbiting a sun that loves us
even now the golden rays
light up our room
jobe
Tomas Tranströmer was a fine poet and an influence on American Poets like Robert Bly and James Wright. This is a half-hour poetry reading.
he was not an astronaut someone will say
and he never traveled to the moons of jupiter
or to Aalpha centauri so his poems are weak
look at them limping there across the page
and he did not score the touchdown to win the game
or visit machu picchu or pray at mecca
so what good are these poor poems
these poems are mocked by better poems
he loved a woman
he raised a family and a peach tree
so what we want the snows of Shasta
we want the great flood
peaches and children
give us a break
jobe
