And then the clouds faded away.

Kitchen  -  Anastasia Dukhanina 2021

            In the blink of an eye a year can pass like this. Wind in the oaks and pines. Bird song. A lot of sun, with rain as rare as diamonds. Time slips away. I know who I am and at the end of it all I wonder if that is good enough.

James Lee Jobe

            The clouds hung in the sky over the valley like laundry on a line. Someone washed their whites today. In the morning I sat zazen out on the patio. At first I was distracted by a noisy mockingbird, but I counted breaths until the mockingbird faded away. And then the clouds faded away. And the sky. And everything, until finally I was empty. No thought. Sometimes I can get there, sometimes not. I don't worry about it. Later, standing up, the clouds were still there, but the mockingbird wasn't. A broom was there, so I slowly swept the patio with slow, even strokes. 

James Lee Jobe 

CUTTING GREENS

curling them around

i hold their bodies in obscene embrace

thinking of everything but kinship.

collards and kale

strain against each strange other

away from my kissmaking hand and

the iron bedpot.

the pot is black,

the cutting board is black,

my hand,

and just for a minute

the greens roll black under the knife,

and the kitchen twists dark on its spine

and I taste in my natural appetite

the bond of live things everywhere.

Lucille Clifton

            Every day is full of opportunities to do good; may I have the ability to see them, and the courage to step and embrace them.

James Lee Jobe 

Shake Your Money-Maker  Elmore James 

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Thanks, James