I’m not growing taller

Wife-o and Doggo

**

Winter. Sunrise. Tule fog drapes the Sacramento Valley.

Slowly, slowly, life begins for the day. A garbage truck

creeps down the damp street, easing through the fog.

A neighbor goes out in his bathrobe for the newspaper.

Crows talk to each other from the barren branches of trees.

A glimmer of quiet light illuminates a corner of foggy sky,

showing this world where the sun will finally burn through.

The people jogging or walking in the park do not speak.

Far away, there is a hard war with no end in sight,

and the sons and daughters of this valley die there.

What is life without poetry? It is nothing. It is nothing.

**

A foolish man in a valley with 2 rather long seasons, and two very short ones. In January I miss the dry warmth of summer, and in August I dream of the wet smell of the winter fields. And the Sacramento Valley itself? It lives in the moment; a dharma lesson for me from the climate.

**

The crow makes a grab at the running mouse,

But too, late, he makes into the underbrush

And is long gone. The food chain can be random.

The wind is rather cold, but the sun is bright,

A winter afternoon down by Putah Creek.

**

No, I’m not growing taller, I’m just getting closer as I walk. Soon we’ll be together again, face to face. But friend, that’s just my body. My ghost is sitting down by Putah Creek, dangling his ghost feet in the cold, green water. My, such a long winter.

James Lee Jobe 

I'm really Wallace Beery in 'The Champ.'

Jack Kerouac

Grateful Dead, 1974, Sugaree

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James