compassion in one hand & kindness in the other

Treasure - Aegis Strife

You want to write some goodness.

You open the notebook and you write down a river.

It looks pretty good there on the page,

So you also write down a mountain.

After that, business picks up,

And so you write a lovely valley,

And a small town where the creek feeds the river.

Snowmelt from the mountain swells the creek.

You write people with lives that fit this landscape.

They grow crops that are fed by water from the river.

They sell supplies to the farmers from a store,

And that store is built of wood from valley oaks.

Now you need a green grocer

To sell the produce that is grown,

So you write one, a friendly fellow.

The people have children and you write a school.

They need faith, so you write a church,

And you write some goodness into their souls.

Then you close the notebook,

For their lives are their own. You're done.

What happens next is up to them.

***

    My friend wears two watches, one on each wrist. One is his own, and the other was his father's watch. It's nearly 100 years old, he tells me. 

    My friend comes from Haiti... and New York City, the Bronx. His father moved the family to New York when the children were very young. More opportunity, a better life, safer. He worked very hard for his family, to make a good start for them.

    As a man, my friend settled here in California, had his own family, and owned a successful restaurant. Haitian food. 

    When his father died back in New York, after some time had passed, he asked his mother for that watch. Of course he already had a nice watch, more expensive, so he just wears them both. It keeps his father, that good man, close. 

    And my friend knows what time it is. 

***

Did you ever think that maybe Lazarus wasn't really dead?

The relationship between the wolf and the lamb

Is a one-way love affair.

Eugene McCarthy never really had a chance in 1968.

The testimonies of plain people are often ignored by the juries;

Did you really wear that jacket to court?

The soul falls in love, the body lusts,

And the old hound chews a bone on the sawdust floor.

The lamb would really be better off without the wolf.

Maybe Lazarus wasn't dead at all.

Jesus waited two days before He even began the walk to Bethany.

He must have known something. 

***

    I have come to feel that I should live in the country, far from most people. Perhaps up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains where the forest is deep. 

    I don't exactly know why I came to feel this way now, now that I am an old man, but I know this; I am tired of asphalt and concrete, cars and trucks. I am tired of traffic lights and going fast. 

    I want a forest of pine trees, green all year, and the sounds of coyotes and owls. 

    Of course, this will never happen. My wife is settled here, and really, I am, too. And we have health issues, both of us. 

    But oh, to step out of my door and have the woods right there in front of me, just waiting for my footsteps in the fallen pine needles, to have the moonlight filtering down through a canopy of green branches. 

***

With compassion in one hand

And kindness in the other, let me work.

poems and prose by james lee jobe 

Deliberation - Aegis Strife

Making space for the truth of our feelings is essential for keeping the heart healthy and finding a wise response in this complex world.

-Oren Jay Sofer

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

-Jack Kerouac

Equanimity is the best thing you can bring to any situation.

-Brad Warner

We fear death, we shudder at life’s instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear. When artists create pictures and thinkers search for laws and formulate thoughts, it is in order to salvage something from the great dance of death, to make something last longer than we do.

-Hermann Hesse

Radovan Skohel - Wind Ahead

POETRY LINK: Ocean Vuong interview: ‘I don’t believe a writer should just keep writing as long as they’re alive’

POETRY LINK: 'Church Bells' a poem by Jillian Calahan

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Thanks, jlj