something sticky on your shoe

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.

-

Be kind. Live free. Find the wings that were meant for you.

The sky is empty to leave room for us to fly.

-

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, James, but it beats the alternative.

-

Ignore those people who want you to explain yourself.

-

james lee jobe

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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 C.E.

Sarah Jarosz in concert 

We are not punished FOR our sins, but BY them. 

Elbert Hubbard

-

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

Mary Oliver

-

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

Stephen Hawking

-

What I stand for is what I stand on. 

Wendell Berry

-

Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy.

Mark Coleman

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jlj