I am no one in particular, no more blue than the sky, no more deep than the sea. The same as you, just a small piece of the endlessness.
Orange sun, pale, in a gray sky.
Davis, California, in the big valley.
The biting odor of burning wood.
There is a forest fire about 100 miles away,
North by east.
Paradise, California, in the Sierra foothills.
A wind out of the north
Has brought the smoke here.
My wife is coughing, many people
On the streets are wearing breathing masks.
Several people dead in the fire, so far,
Some more people are missing.
And nearly 7 thousand buildings lost.
Homes, schools, businesses.
“Did you see the sunset?”
A friend wants to know.
“An orange sun, pale, in a gray sky.
If the fire keeps up I’ll get some pictures tomorrow.”
I quickly decide against chastising him;
What’s the point? He means no harm.
I see the homeless and the dead,
He sees a unique sunset.
Both are there, from a fire 100 miles away.
Settling down in a quiet room, alone,
I begin the Loving Kindness prayer.
The lone street lamp reminds me of a man stranded on an island. The quiet street is the still, calm ocean. Night. The huge Pacific. The feel of my feet on the sidewalk.
The lamp is bright, cutting through
The darkness, and I have lit the incense.
I have prepared a simple meal;
All awaits your return. The early evening
Passes by like an old man on the highway.
Oh no—I am the old man on the highway.
Even now I crave her sweaty lust, her grunting passion, the moist, salty feel of her, and her eyes as bright as life. Even now.
Geese overhead, you can them talking
As they pass. A season is passing, too.
And here on Earth we go on: loving,
Living, being. Opposable thumbs
And laughter. But sorrow, too.
Yes, of course, sorrow, too.
86 months since my son left this Earth.
It was the moon, you know, that taught me to believe, or at least to attempt belief. Yes, my friend, it was the moon; so vast, so beautiful, close and yet far, always changing, always returning.
by jobe
Stuff somebody said.
One of the great dreams of man must be to find some place between the extremes of nature and civilization where it is possible to live without regret.
Barry Lopez
When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.
Joseph Campbell
Asking the proper questions is the central action of transformation. Questions are the key that causes the secret doors of the psyche to swing open.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Yes, I think it's really important to acknowledge that Dr. King, precisely at the moment of his assassination, was re-conceptualizing the civil rights movement and moving toward a sort of coalitional relationship with the trade union movement.
Angela Davis
If They Come For Us, a poem by Fatimah Asghar
Poems in my email.
My Apologies, a poem by Ammiel Alcalay
The Moon Is on Wellbutrin, a poem by Diannely Antigua
We just passed Pearl Harbor Day, which always brings my Grandpa to mind. No, he wasn’t there, he was a WW1 veteran. It’s his birthday. The attack was on his 43rd birthday. Helluva thing to happen on your birthday, right?
His name was Bill Mahoney, and he was a devout Catholic. He tried very hard to get me to be a better one, too. He would take me to morning mass on weekdays, and our local cathedral had the 12 Stations of the Cross around the Nave of the church, and he would explain them to me. Christ’s Suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane was especially moving to him. I was very young, this was all before I was 9 years old, and he was worried about my soul. The Sermon On The Mount was important to him as well. My Catholic mom was divorced from my Protestant dad, and Grandpa just knew I wasn’t getting enough of The True Faith.
He was a very kind soul. He was also a total baseball nut, and he did manage to pass that along to me. This was in Baltimore, so the Oriole games were on the radio and often on TV. The old Washington Senators still existed, and DC was only 40 miles away; you could pick up their games real easily. And sometimes on a clear night you might pick up the Phillies game. Grandpa was from Boston, and really was a Sox fan. They would be in B-More or DC sometimes, and that would be about the only time he catch their games. He had still been living in Boston when Babe Ruth played there, before the famous trade to the Yankees. He had seen The Babe play right in right of him. As a kid he had seen Shoeless Joe and the Black Sox, too. He could tell those stories in great detail.
Bill Mahoney never turned down somebody who was down and out. A panhandler or a needy relative always got whatever he could give. He told me it was important, as God would test our faith at times. “And young man, you don’t want to come up short.”
Grandpa, I’m Buddhist, and I’m a Giants fan, but I know you love me anyway. And I do love The Sermon On The Mount.
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jobe