you've stood at too many graves

roberto azank - tulip peony

when the young wake in the summer
they are immortal
at least they can feel that way
by age sixty you know better
you've stood at too many graves
you've seen too many coffins
lowered into the earth
but also this you kissed
the babies ears and tickled
their tiny perfect toes
that counts in life just as much
no it's more

james lee jobe

If they come for me in the morning, they will come for you in the night.

-Angela Davis

A poem by Rumi

Don’t worry about saving these songs!

And if one of our instruments breaks,

it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place

where everything is music.

The strumming and the flute notes

rise into the atmosphere,

and even if the whole world’s harp

should burn up, there will still be

hidden instruments playing.

So the candle flickers and goes out.

We have a piece of flint, and a spark.

This singing art is sea foam.

The graceful movements come from a pearl

somewhere on the ocean floor.

Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge

of driftwood along the beach, wanting!

They derive

from a slow and powerful root

that we can’t see.

Stop the words now.

Open the window in the center of your chest,

and let the spirit fly in and out.

-Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī

(1207-1273 CE)

watching the sky taught me how to read each star was a word galaxies were sentences and the universe was a story that lacked an end

I didn't know the dharma but I bought a house on dharma street
I planted fruit trees the peach tree did alright but not the lemon tree

walking into the creek where the water came up to my waist I felt clean
not just to my waist but all over me my life felt clean

whatever man I am I am at some moments I am a fool I know that
but there are other moments when I am everything all at once the one

james lee jobe

If we live, we live; if we die, we die; if we suffer, we suffer; if we are terrified, we are terrified. No problem.

-Alan Watts

the old man spoke of war (a haibun)

"Nobody wins a war. What have you won? Nothing. Everyone is still dead. War is just death, and we're supposed to live." The man who said that to me was 97 at the time. A World War Two vet and hero. The President had announced an increase in American troops in Afghanistan, after more than 15 years of war there.

American bombers

will waste an entire village –

still the moon shines on.

james lee jobe

roberto azank - poppy

Trying to get out of the illusion is the greatest illusion of all. 

-Adyashanti

I think that just saying "thank you" is a pretty good prayer.

-james lee jobe 

When you understand interconnectedness, it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying. 

-Robert A. F. Thurman

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Thanks, jlj