We are all born mad. Some remain so.
Samuel Beckett
IT’S far too late to think about perfection
it’s perfectly clear that I am not the one to save the day
climb mount everest or discover the cure for baldness
but there's this — I’m still me
I can live with being the man that I am
and that's enough
when that door finally opens
I’m walking through
whatever comes next is alright by me
jobe
Altitude — a poem by Airea D. Matthews
SNOW fell
and I stayed home from school for no reason
I didn't go outside to play
I just read my books all day
with the radio on loud
the beatles
the yardbirds
like that
the day felt sad although nothing sad had happened
it was as though my life had not yet begun
and I was waiting for that
in a sort of limbo
I was wrong of course
that was my life right then
as this is now
and every moment counts
as much as every other moment
but I was a boy and white snow was falling
from a gray sky onto a gray world
white upon gray
and I watched this through the bedroom window
as the yard filled
what did I know
nothing
I just felt
jobe
I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
Edward Everett Hale
Yolo County, Sacramento Valley
Light in the winter morning,
a gray glow through the tule fog,
a fog that sits low across the bottom lands,
hugging the creeks and blanketing the reeds and oleander,
a gray sunrise that is just barely kissing the dawn,
and the silver sky is low, all is still,
an easy light, gentle and gray,
a love, a thought, a hope.And the creeks themselves,
Cache Creek and Putah Creek,
dark and cold and fast,
rinsing the earth,
washing away the dust of summer with winter's bath,
like dancers to a wild Spanish mambo,
sisters of the rock and bone of living,
the blood veins to the body of the valley,
as strong as gods, full of life,
and full of death.The valley is a marsh,
a garden for herons and waterbirds,
a green grocer for any who would tend it, love it,
treat it like a mother or a daughter,
the soil made rich and sweet
from the centuries spent underwater,
when this valley was a great sea,
from water to soil to table to stomach,
worked with love.It is winter,
it is morning,
another fine day in our valley.
jobe
At Last the New Arriving — a poem by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
AT the end of the service
our congregation joins hands
to bring a prayer into the world.
Hand takes hand takes hand
until we are like a lovely snake
winding through the sanctuary.
No one is left out,
no one is omitted.
The reaching out continues
until all are joined by flesh,
and then we all are joined
in spirit by our prayer.
jobe
The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding.
Wendell Berry
IN the room where I live
there is nothing but one chair
and there I sit
while time shines on me
like moonlight
it is quiet
peaceful
and time goes on and on
jobe
A POEM BY ALICE NOTLEY:
YOU hear that heroic big land music?
Land a one could call one.
He starred, had lives, looks down:
windmill still now they buy only
snow cows. Part of a dream, she
had a long waist he once but yet
never encircled, and now I'm
in charge of this, this donkey with
a charmed voice. Elly, I'm
being sad thinking of Daddy.
He marshaled his private lady,
did she wear a hat or the
other side? get off my own land? We
were all born on it to die on
with no writin' on it. But who are
you to look back, well he's
humming "From this valley," who's gone.
Support and preserve me, father. Oh
Daddy, who can stand it?
Alice Notley 1945—2025
SHADOW and light are in love with each other
there embrace is at once both strong and gentle
their love is such that one
can hardly exist without the other
jobe
The road to the bottom-land.
The road to the bottom-land is more like a thought of a road,
hardly a road at all. Two wheel-ruts in the dirt, hidden
by tall oak trees. No cars, no people except for me.The only sounds are my footsteps and a few chattering birds.
Starlings, robins, finches. One noisy crow.
If I wasn't here, what would they all talk about?The road winds in a big gentle loop, going steadily onward.
There's a creek down there in the bottom, and when I get there
I'll stop and write a small and rather unimportant poem.
jobe
Thanks for reading this. Share wildly. Imagine Francis of Assisi scattering seeds for the birds.