in this spell we are stars from different galaxies

Life ends, life is impermanent. Your memory
endures longer, but not much longer,
memory is also impermanent. And so is
everything. Someone said, 
"If that's the case, why even try?" 
That's the wrong question. Friend,
since everything is impermanent, 
why not try your best?

*

In this spell we are stars from different galaxies. 

When the still day comes to an end, 

both good and evil have been prepared. -Georg Trakl

The fire in the stove is built from the sound of dogs howling. 

This fire has howling to burn instead of wood, 

and this fire is the edge of night, its sharpest corner, 

its finest and longest dream. 

This is the corner where the avenues of love and indifference meet. 

Muddy Waters is playing a long blues riff on guitar 

and I am kissing your lips, one lip at a time, 

then you smile and the spell is cast in shadow and thought. 

In this spell we are stars from different galaxies 

that stand naked together, 

toe to toe, face to face, shining. 

We are as bright as the pleasure of living. 

In this spell the earthquakes have names like old blues men 

from another generation, from earlier decades, 

with names like Hambone and Sonny.  

I am lost, and I say that out loud for you to hear. 

There is a moth drawn to the light of the stove 

The way that life is drawn to death. 

The way that death is drawn to life. 

That moth's time is almost up.

And you and I? You put your soft and gentle hands 

to the sides of my face and pull me down to you, 

and then you very gently bite my lower lip. 

Fire and time and spells mean nothing to us anymore.   

*

For three years I've been in hiding

people might think it's because of the pandemic

but no 

I just felt like being invisible

so I was 

but now a new spring is here 

the world feels fresh and new 

so I will return to the world again 

things bloom in spring

so this old man will bloom

again maybe

*

People endlessly argue about the earth:
where does one person's earth end,
where does the next person's earth begin,
and all the while the earth is really the sky.
All the while the sky is really the earth
and both are the ocean, the ocean is both.
The people could have been rising up
to their higher self this whole time.
One earth, one people.
There is only one earth,
and the people are a part of it.
It does not belong to us.

*

James Lee Jobe 

JOSHUA REDMAN, Let It Be

Silently a flower blooms, in silence it falls away

Zenkei Shibayama

All know the Way, but few actually walk it. 

Bodhidharma

50,000 years of civilization and people think this is the best we can do? 

James Lee Jobe 

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JLJ