Everything good and natural is interconnected.

by Kitano Tsunetomi



I look like a man but that is just a ruse
I am a stone cut from the hard bones of this world
beaten and shaped by the river
over the length of one hundred thousand years
dogs love me and crows seem to avoid me
and I love those very large things that exist in this life
a smile on the face of our grandchild
a wind with the strength to uproot the old elms
a sun that passes behind the moon
and casts a vast shadow across the earth
you my wife are the river that shaped me
every year that passes us is different from the one before
thank you for that
I am writing this down so I don't forget to tell you
that happens a lot now
know that I love the peace of you
looking at the miracle of your face it is easy to see
that the cares of yesterday are gone
and when you wake I must find out how you do that
time and time again

---

imagine this

that everything good and natural is interconnected

and sacred

all of it

---

putah creek not yet spring 

down near the water    the desert willow and deer grass 

were already in bloom    I loved them 

as one would love sisters    we spoke of our hopes 

our dreams and our plans     overhead the branches 

of a blue oak brushed the branches of a cottonwood 

in the breeze     there was the sound of rushing water 

on rocks worn smooth over centuries     the sky 

was eternal    watching over us all 

oh sisters and brothers 

we are all only passing through 

---

Imagine this - that you took your sword (whatever that may be in your life) and you turned it into a plowshare to help create a new garden. What would that feel like?

---

the buddha of these

poems is an old dog with

nothing much to do

-

all of the above are by james lee jobe 

some previously published

-

Everything changes. There is nothing to stick to. That is the Buddha's most important teaching.

Shunryu Suzuki

---

The birds have vanished from the sky.

Now the last clouds drain away.

We sit together, the mountain and me, 

until only the mountain remains.

Li Po (701-762)

---

Art is art. Everything else is everything else.

Ad Reinhardt

---

We are born of love; love is our mother.

Rumi

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james