golden light filters through the green branches
a map of a place far away
To the east of my house, across the street, a stand of pines line up as if for a parade. They are all between fifty and seventy feet high. Two hours past dawn the sun is directly behind the pines, about halfway between the ground and the treetops. The golden light filters through the green branches the way that love might filter through a person’s life; beautiful and bright, yet you can look directly at it. The golden light of morning through the trees that are always green.
-jobe
Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.
Emily Dickinson
A poem by W.S. Merwin, 1927 - 2019
THANKS
Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is
-W.S. Merwin
let's inventory the suitcase
the suitcase itself is cheap and beat up
inside there is one change of clothes
old and threadbare
dozens of letters that were never mailed
all in envelopes
addressed with neat handwriting
one apple and one hunk of cheese
a map of a place far away
never visited
the letters are tied together in a bundle
which is large bound by twine
the knot is an elegant double half-hitch
the apple and cheese are wrapped in wax-paper
inside a small paper bag with the top rolled shut
if you open the map
there is a place marked with an 'x'
a small town beside a lake in a large valley
time is passing
it rains for a few minutes
but then it suddenly stops
-jobe
What is madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance.
Theodore Roethke
I can speak so sweetly
that I spit honey;
it’s in my eyes
that the poison lies.
-jobe
write stuff, anything
lists, poems, secrets
little notes
to remind you of things
and draw stuff, maps
portraits, cartoons
and landscapes
create - whatever work you do
plumber or detective
bus driver or teacher
lawyer or carpenter
put your heart into it
create
and so know yourself
-jobe
Links
Dead Reckoning, a poem by Hyejung Kook
As a boy, my mother would paddle me with a metal serving ladle. It hurt like hell and I called it The Big Spoon. If I was on the edge of being in trouble, and I often was, my mother would scream, “Jimmy! I’m going to get The Big Spoon.” Her booming voice carried across the rowhouses of Baltimore. It was a voice from Hell. Sixty years on, I wonder what the neighbors thought.
james lee jobe