a field mouse makes a run for it

"As much as we need a prosperous economy, we also need a prosperity of kindness and decency." 

Caroline Kennedy

They are walking down my street 

With the sunshine wrapped around them

A slow neighbor and his slow dog

As they pass me I tell them

Hallelujah

This place is safe 

But I have lived in cities 

Where danger led the race 

And bullets were king 

The ricochets whispered to me 

And I whispered back

Hallelujah

Morning becomes noon 

And day becomes night

All things eventually end 

Life itself is impermanent

What else there to say 

To the ticking clock

Hallelujah

James Lee Jobe

Marcello Castellani

Sometimes the scandal isn't what law was broken, but what the law allows. 

Edward Snowden

Perfect weather 

Not hot, not cold, just right

Sitting in the park 

I wonder if the kitty regrets her timing

Clearly she didn’t get what she pounced for

Beautiful sunshine on Davis California

As a field mouse makes a run for it

James Lee Jobe

Michal Lukasiewicz

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pine seeds in the wind

Don't expect others to praise you or raise toasts to you. Don't count on receiving credit for your good deeds or good practice.

Chögyam Trungp

A water moccasin and a hummingbird 

are the same in the void   

so are you and jesus   

or even a pebble and jesus   

lay down your thoughts and welcome the void  

as a young man I wandered all over this country 

it’s the same as having settled down 

in this valley for thirty years 

comparisons are useless anyway 

everything is equal in the void

James Lee Jobe

Phil Koch

You've got to dig it to dig it, you dig?

Thelonious Monk

Staying up most of the night working on poems 

oh lonely bones - can’t you rest 

why should I 

even now a strong wind carries 

some pine seeds to the earth 

even now the boats slide 

down the long Sacramento River to the bay 

a new day begins and I am alive

James Lee Jobe

Link: CLICK HERE to go to a wonderful poem by Ted Kooser over on the Poetry Foundation site.

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the things we have in common

Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.

Carl Sandburg

Honesty 

There’s a need for more of it

A dog will sniff the rear of the rear end

Of another dog and then turn to be sniffed

There is no pretension in that

Dogs are naked 

And open about the nakedness

I am not suggesting that we humans go that far

But perhaps it might help to have a place

Where everyone is naked 

A park 

A shopping area 

A neighborhood

Whenever we are at this place we just strip

Here am I 

Just as I am

Here is my belly 

Here are my privates

The things we all have in common

Are greater than our differences

I believe that and so

Perhaps living a part of life naked

Would make this easier to see 

James Lee Jobe

Just as one opens the curtains 

To let in the sunlight,

Or opens the window for some fresh air

So did I allow Death into my house

Or did I 

Perhaps Death was always here

Just in a different room sipping tea

Waiting to be needed

James Lee Jobe

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some short poems

"I believe in peace. I believe in mercy."

Malala Yousafzai

Define life

It is the lone snowflake

That landed on the nose

Of the puppy

James Lee Jobe

Wynton Marsalis Septet - Hotter Than That

Silver bullets stop 

The werewolf dead in his tracks 

The full moon shines on 

James Lee Jobe

Baltimore, long ago

Wind blows in some showers   

Sun dries up the scant rain  

Clouds cover the sun again  

And then darkness covers all  

Sick  

It has been days since I’ve been outside 

James Lee Jobe

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Thanks, James 

praise from mother earth

As Dogen says, people like what is not true
and they don't like what is true. 

Shunryu Suzuki

Sleep 

Mine is far from regular

One night I will sleep fairly well

And then hardly at all the next one 

Life for me 

Sometimes comes on a 48 hour cycle

And that’s alright

I don’t fight it at all

Friend 

There are people who resent the slow years

And fret about the fast ones

I say take every day one at a time

Just as it is

Even now

This present moment is golden

James Lee Jobe

Robert Rauschenberg

Morning brought an easy rain

Soft with tiny drops

That landed like sparrows

Or angels

And if the earth had arms

She would have lifted them up

In thanks

There is no greater praise

James Lee Jobe

Thanks for reading today's post here at the poetry zendo. Perhaps you might consider supporting this blog with a small donation through the Buy Me A Coffee link just below. Many thanks, JLJ. 

sweeping and raking

When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it.

Wisława Szymborska

How does one begin –

One can begin by tasting night and day

By tasting a freezing winter 

Or a summer heat wave

Taste life and death 

Go ahead do it

Taste these things 

Slowly slowly

Let the flavors settle in your mouth

Be in the moment as it happens 

Then cleanse the palate 

With meditation and silence

With prayer and emptiness

If this tires you then sleep

And should you become energized

Sweep the floor or rake the leaves

Do these things one at a time

As you do one thing 

Do not think of the next

James Lee Jobe

KRISTEN HATGI

Death 

the midnight of Life

Life 

the new morning of Death

Oh 

how sadly my time passes

James Lee Jobe

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James 

time is nothing

"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 land where I live is a land of trees

And a land of trees is a land of birds

A cold night in autumn 

And from above the wind

Comes the soft hoots of an owl 

It is a melancholy sound 

But perhaps I am hearing my own sadness 

Yes I am sure of it

From my kitchen window at midnight

I see bright moonlight on the tall pines

With their branches moving in the biting wind

Their wide trunks are hidden in shadow

James Lee Jobe

Chris Thile. Sarah Jarosz. 

Where The Soul Of Man Never Dies.

Half surrendered to sleep 

The warm sun on my face 

It has been some years 

Since I stopped wearing a watch

James Lee Jobe

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James 

rhetorical questions

Fear is the cheapest room in the house. 

I would like to see you living in better conditions. 

Hafez

A hummingbird buzzes by the lemon tree which is filled with fruit. The neighbor’s old cat lurks beneath the lovely young oak. There is a tight crispness to the breeze that whispers if you listen. A change is coming and even now in my own life autumn is easing into winter. The forecast for tomorrow calls for rain.

James Lee Jobe 

The Red Madras Headdress by Henri Matisse, 1907

The bodies dead from COVID-19 were stacked like Jenga blocks on the city sidewalks. These stacks were the same height as our mounting grief. How many coffins can you pull out before the stack falls and you lose? Does it even matter? Haven’t we all lost already? These questions are rhetorical; no one is left to hear me ask. Just the finches eating the birdseed that I leave scattered on the cold and empty patio.

James Lee Jobe

It is easy to get attached to any insight we have, 

especially if it is a profound one, but to be truly free, 

we must also let go of even our most precious realizations.

Santiago Santai Jiménez, “Free from Suffering and Free to Suffer”

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James 

on the far side of the sun

Zen is really just a reminder to stay alive and to be awake.

Peter Matthiessen

There is always some reason to give thanks

My aging body is falling apart 

Hearing and mobility are both compromised 

like a criminal caught in the act

Thankfully I am on the back-end of life anyway

My future is now 

That’s alright 

I am a marvelous cook

Not so great at gardening

One by one my plants die like sickly prisoners

I give thanks that I am not farming for a living

So you’ve got some troubles 

So what 

Cheer up

It just means you're still important 

To somebody

James Lee Jobe

Mark Kazav

If a thing loves, it is infinite.

William Blake

There must be something

On the far side of the sun 

On the far side of the moon

Tomorrow let’s go and see

James Lee Jobe

All the elements for your happiness are already here.

There's no need to run, strive, search or struggle. Just be. 

Thich Nhat Hanh

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Thanks, James

Threadbare poems. Used.

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn

___________

This is another day of blue sky and delight

Is that the voices of my now adult children

Laughing on the sweet autumn breeze

Is that my wife's tender smile

Above me in the soft, white clouds

Love is a feather floating down to us from the sky

The universe is a gleam in my granddaughter's eye

If it all ended to day what will I have missed

Nothing

This is another day of blue sky and delight

James Lee Jobe

Ionut Caras

Let’s say that your poems wear old Wellington boots and walk through mud on the way to the market. At the market people buy these poems even though they are rather worn and dirty. Frayed at the ends. Threadbare poems. Used. Let’s say that the hopes of your early years are not the hopes you have now. Once you wanted so much, but now? Some sleep. A day where things don’t hurt so much. What things? Your feet. Your empty house. In fact, let’s say that the sun skips your house today, all the other houses have sunshine. Not yours. Let’s say that it is time for goodbye. Let’s say you have become a memory.

James Lee Jobe

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James 

the shape of a pebble

The Buddha says, ideally, you want to make your mind like a broken gong. People can hit it, but there’s no reverberation.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu, “The Broken Gong”

Hiking The Ridge Trail

    To my west, the Montezuma Hills and the Vaca Mountains mark the edge of my flat valley and house the poison oak, rattlesnakes, deer, raccoons, and owls. The bones of these mountains, so low that they are almost hills, are shale, sandstone, and basaltic rock dating back to the Cretaceous age. Putah Creek and Cache drain the region to the east. Putah Creek is dammed to form Lake Berryessa, covering what was once a lovely canyon.

All day hiking the ridge trail
To picnic on the big flat rock
That overlooks Lake Berryessa.
Spring flowers, sunshine,
And an avocado sandwich.

James Lee Jobe

Vincent Van Gogh - Avenue Of Flowering Chestnut Trees - April 1889

Buddha taught that everyone and everything is interrelated. We cannot leave out anything or make one kind of spiritual consciousness superior and the other inferior. 

Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, “Difference and Harmony”

The shape of a pebble.

    The ocean is everywhere. She kisses the shore, she floats in clouds. The ocean exists even in the shape of a pebble on the prairie floor. She was here before man, indeed, the first land creatures came from the ocean. Water is life, we need it like we need the sunlight.

Walking into the cold sea,
the world seems to swallow me.
Life is wet, and brief.

James Lee Jobe

Link: Haiku by Etheridge Knight

I don't want much; to change hate into love, revenge into forgiveness, war into peace, death into life. That's all.

JLJ

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James