the tremendous valley of california

Pablo Picasso - The Fool, 1904

“All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.”

Kabir

dear parents

if there is a next life i don’t want to be your son

i don’t want to even know you

you are as different from each other

as summer is from winter 

and yet you’re both full of shit

father 

with your lies and your cruelty

mother 

with your superstitions 

your ridiculous beliefs 

and your violence

i am far better off with the dharma

even if i am a flea on the ass of a mongrel dog

i release myself now

from all of the crap you taught me

there is no god and no america to worship

all is impermanence

i will worship emptiness
i will pledge allegiance to the truth

if there is a next life i don’t want to be your son

i don’t want to even know you

even though i love you still

years after you have passed away

into the shadows

into your cool graves 

it is a spring day 

fresh and green,

and as i write these words

the strength of the sunshine

lays across my face and hands

and i am free 

i choose to be so

James Lee Jobe

"Don't fear mistakes. There are none."

Miles Davis

cool night air

sleeping under a favorite blanket 

waking once around 3 am to read a couple of poems

--wang ping’s ten thousand waves--

then sleep until the soft sunrise sings me awake 

to go make the coffee

that’s a nice night isn’t it

yes nice indeed

James Lee Jobe

Tule Elk, Yolo County, California

"What an extraordinary privilege to know
that you have within you a refuge
that nobody can ever touch.
Nobody can take it away from you."

Helen Tworkov

if you must know 

i live in the tremendous valley of california 

sheltered below the mountains 

and safe from the sharks in the sea 

but in another world i live in the mountains 

and in yet another world i live beside the sea 

or perhaps i am the valley 

perhaps i am the mountains and the sea 

i don’t really much care 

this valley reaches from here to there 

and i am grateful to be alive 

let’s be silent now 

you close your eyes and i will close mine 

that is reality enough for one day 

James Lee Jobe 

"When the mind relaxes its grip, the body leads the way.

It’s a great relief for the mind, in fact." 

Willa Blythe Baker

A poem from the late Robert Bly

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James 

tasting the sweat

Martin Osner 

Blinding ignorance does mislead us. O! Wretched mortals, open your eyes!

- Leonardo da Vinci

why do I write these poems 

day after day 

year after year 

I find peace in the poems 

peace in the pencils and paper 

peace in the words that come to mind 

and so  go on 

-----

What day is today? The summer heat

Binds me down like heavy rope.

Above this, the sky is a cooler blue,

And below, the earth is baked hard.

Through this, our love moves,

Traveling back and forth as always.

My lips on your neck taste the sweat.

-----

the work

“I believe that you see something that you want to get done, 

you cannot give up, and you cannot give in.” 

-John Lewis

five hundred years of oppression

slavery 

followed by a freedom that isn’t equal

a freedom that is lesser

then the jim crow laws

the economics that keep ghettos in existence

schools with no funding 

ancient books

overcrowded classrooms

access to voting is blocked

police who stop and frisk because of your color

people who fear you

and cross the street when you walk

there is so much to get done

it’s almost unbelievable

but you cannot give up

and you cannot give in.

stay the course 

take on the work

day by day 

everyday

there can never be a surrender

- James Lee Jobe

Things are not what they appear to be: nor are they otherwise.

- Surangama Sutra

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James 

George Clooney's hoofprints

Yarek Godrey 

I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. 

-Jack Kerouac

I am dreaming that George Clooney leaves the hoofprints of a horse as he walks. He sings to a pretty French girl, and then he actually becomes a horse. A handsome horse. I form a commune with several former co-workers and the sky becomes a mirror to reflect all life on earth. It’s complicated, this dream, and I can't remember a lot of things. There were long passages written and spoken in Farsi. People with shovel-heads dug long trenches. I sang them the Clooney song, and yelled to the great mirror in the sky, "This is a dream! I am the reflection of you!"

---

This body is tired now and wants to rest

Like a bear rests in the deepest corner of winter. 

I want the sleep of the world, 

And I need those soft dreams of fur. 

I am setting down the wormy apple 

And the snake that desires everything. 

The prayer bell is ringing 

And the hour is sharp and clear. 

Will I wake up again one day? 

Does it matter? I am weary, 

Aching in my bones, and I cannot now say 

If my memories of rest are real or false. 

The corner of winter. 

The sleep of the world. 

The snake of desire. 

Who am I even talking to now? 

-James Lee Jobe

If we spend 57% on war and 6% on education, what do you think we value more?

-Lee Camp

Otis Rush - I Can't Quit You, Baby

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James 

the children of gaza

"I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do."

Edward Everett Hale

by Sol Halabi

I am waiting for the dogs to tell their own stories. We could hire a translator to help out. I am waiting for the rifles to get tired of killing and request a song or two, for the bullets to give up and go home. Who are these people that draw lines across the world? This side of the line is mine, they say. don't cross. Then they polish their nickels and dimes and stack them in the sunlight. I am waiting for the dogs to tell their own stories, and the cats, and the crows. You're never too old to learn something. People think they know  so damn much. What do people know? Nothing. Nothing at all. 

-----

The children of The Gaza Strip, eaten. Their bodies are torn and destroyed and now their souls slip through the veil that separates Here from There. They must drink from the invisible cup while their parents are numbed with horror and a sorrow that comes only from blood. The children of The Gaza Strip, eaten by the machine that is fueled by death, are now through with earthly laughter. Lifted up on the backs of angels, these children have returned to The One. And the rest of us are left behind to pray and wonder at the unbelievable violence that fills the streets and our hearts, and darkens our days and our dreams. We are the ones left behind to struggle and pray for peace. Let there be peace, Insha'Allah. 

James Lee Jobe

"When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight." 

Thich Nhat Hanh

In Zen, ensō (円相 , "circle") is a circle that is hand-drawn
in one or two uninhibited brushstrokes to express a moment
when the mind is free to let the body create.

___________

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Thanks, James 

the blood of the needy, the gardens of the rich

"My God, a moment of bliss. Why, isn't that enough for a whole lifetime?"

Fyodor Dostoevsky

Sacramento Valley, Yolo County farmland, near Davis, CA
Looking west to the Vaca Mts.

A dream. I am watching my own ghost till my father's garden. The tiller is very old, pre-World War II, and my ghost struggles to keep it running. And it isn't my living face I see on this ghost, it is my death face, and so I look more like my father than ever before. Our ghosts could easily be one ghost, as if we were sharing something that should not be shared, as if we were each becoming more like the other. In death I feel like my father, and somehow I do indeed become him. I am the both of us, and in death I struggle in the same goddamn field where we both have struggled in life, working and sweating under the hot Texas sun, only now the sun is also dead. And the field is dead. Death is everywhere, I see that now. Death is in the air we breathe, death is in the water we drink. We have indeed shared that which should not be shared. My ghost raises his hands from the tiller and we all start to fade and disappear. My father, our ghosts, and me. 

-----

Days of anger and stupidity. It's election time, 

which fool will get your vote? Apostles and criminals 

are running for office. Let's have a war, no, let's don't. 

Let's feed the poor, no, fuck them for being poor. 

There are jails for the poor. 

Let's pour the blood of the needy on the gardens of the rich. 

No, let's run away on what remains of our legs 

to save what remains of our souls. 

Who has the best cocaine? Who has the best heroin? 

Jesus does, the heroin is cheap and the cocaine isn't. 

The christians are selling guns on the street-corner. 

They want your money and your soul. 

They want your vote. 

-----

There are about 200 countries in the world; do people really believe that there is a god who spends time picking out a favorite?

-----

We are all beings of light and love. 

I cannot explain how I know this, 

but I do. I always have. 

We are all connected on some level, 

down deep, maybe in the DNA, 

maybe in our heartbeat. 

There is just the powerful human heart. 

Our souls are our own, 

and yet are also a part of something else, 

some larger soul perhaps, or the universe, 

or the magic of the starlight. 

Did someone say something to the sun 

to make it burst into flame? 

No. It just did that. 

Did someone have to convince the moon 

to grace the night with beauty? 

Of course not. 

Just to be alive is to be in a state of rapture. 

You can rise up, friend, 

anytime you are ready. 

The entire universe is just waiting for you. 

-for Katy Brown- 

James Lee Jobe 

______________

"The real work of planet-saving will be small, humble, and humbling, and (insofar as it involves love) pleasing and rewarding." 

Wendell Berry 

Sacramento Valley, Yolo County farmland, near Davis, CA
Looking west to the Vaca Mts.

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James 

in the soil, in the air

Let’s connect with the sense of aliveness in this body. 

Breathing, pulsating, this amazing piece of nature. 

Nikki Mirghafori, “Death Is a Part of Life”  

If we can meet again when the world is reshaped. 

Springtime has become different for me 

now that I am old. 

When the trees bud I am reminded 

that it will all go on without me. 

But it won't really be without me, will it? 

I'll be there in the soil, in the air, 

in the carbon. 

If we can meet again when the world is reshaped 

I'll still be me and you'll still be you, 

even if we're finches or oaks. 

Even if we're memories 

that are floating inside the cumulus clouds 

on a fine spring day. 

Like this one. 

----------

Just to love you is enough. 

I wake up with in the cold room 

with those words on my lips.

----------

We are humans, living in that space created by our breathing. 

And into this space we ease our souls so that they might grow and expand, that they might touch each other. Now reach down low, and hold me in your fist, and squeeze. Bite my tongue, just a little. Inhale. Exhale. Squeeze again. Here in this room tonight we are perfect, we are human, and our souls are indeed expanding. 

----------

Don’t remind the world that it is sick and troubled. 

Remind it that it is beautiful and free.

----------

by James Lee Jobe

RICHIE HAVENS - FREEDOM

 (@Woodstock 1969)

Pain is also a vehicle of knowledge. It may very well be knowledge itself. 

Ocean Vuong

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James 

tenderness, kindness, joy - for no reason at all

"The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions."

--Thích Nhất Hạnh

And so now even the sun and the stars cannot help us. 

The western sky, sliced by razors of rain, gun metal gray. 

Coffins draped with american flags, parents and spouses 

and children whose faces are lined with grief, their heads 

are bowed. The priest says the pithy biblical  words 

and some of the names of his god are spoken. Ghosts, 

in the uniform of soldiers. A thick crust to cover 

those who survived the battles, a painful crust, like a scab 

that is getting old. Like the curse of time. This country 

now lives in a perpetual state of war. Hated by so many.

This is a house built of anguish and regret, a place 

where people live dry lives, barren lives, hopeless, 

with a choking from the scabs in their throats.  

--James Lee Jobe

"Not thinking about anything is Zen."

--Bodhidharma, The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma

James' Epitaph. 

“I am proud only of those days that pass in undivided tenderness.”
Robert Bly

Did I rage? Yes. Sometimes righteously. Sometimes ridiculously. 

And yes, a couple of times my rage was evil. I am not proud of that, 

But also this - I won't deny that or anything else any longer. 

And did I love? Most assuredly. Many times. Wives and lovers, 

My children, my parents, my friends. And now, a grandchild. 

But proud of it? No. Love exists beyond foolish pride. 

Love is to be expected of me, of us all. To fail to love 

Is far worse than being angry about something. 

Love is the rent I pay for my own humanity. 

Other than the simple fact that I have it inside of me. 

Now that is something to be proud of. And so I am. 

--James Lee Jobe 

Eternal Gratitude:

A whole lifetime could pass 

before you open your eyes.

Every dream, every success,

every failure, and every

happiness you ever felt

or wished for will have passed 

and gone before you even know it. 

That is why we must hold on 

to each other before we're gone.

Cherish every moment.

Love every second. 

--Will Lee-Jobe 1991-2017

Some people need compassion, and cannot find any. Others cannot find compassion within themselves to share with others. That all people have compassion in their lives, actively, both to receive and to share, this I pray.

James Lee Jobe

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James 

the wolves are getting closer

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.

Albert Einstein

Your eyes are a pump, bringing up fire from hell. 

‘the woods are beautiful, also the dark animals, also man’ 

-Georg Trakl

From the sound of your footsteps crunching 

through the woods comes a certain clue 

that the wolves use to track you down. 

As you walk your eyes are on the leafy ground 

in search of other clues, symbols, or mushrooms. 

Your eyes sound like music, or like the cries 

of a hungry child. -- Is that correct? 

No, it is the sound of the final breath  

of your alcoholic father. 

No, it is the sound of an old plow 

cutting through the hard earth. 

Your eyes have that power, that music. 

Your eyes are a pump, bringing up fire from hell. 

and now the woods are thicker, there is no path, 

and you are lost. The trees have strange colors, 

blue and purple and white, 

and they reach out for you, 

the hoary branches are their arms, 

and you struggle to get past. 

It is very dark, you didn't notice 

that the sun had been going down, 

and you wonder if the wolves are getting closer. 

And they are. 

These woods have a name, 

but you don't know that, 

and you don't care. 

James Lee Jobe

Why not begin to free ourselves from attachment to the body, which is disappearing anyway? 

Kate Lila Wheeler

Start Walking

         'a thorny desert surrounds the city'

            -Georg Trakl

Somewhere, there is an oasis. Which way?

Don't know. This way, that way, any way.

Every direction leads to an endless wasteland

of dust and death. An unforgiving sun. Thorns

like knives, like sorrow. And in the city people

live with little hatreds eating up their souls.

This one prays wrong, that one looks wrong,

another loves wrong. So many different hatreds,

like heart-worms, like maggots. Like death.

Darkened souls that wither, and burn,

and cry out, and damn them all anyway.

Which way? Don't know. This way, that way,

any way. But there is no point in staying here

even one more day. Brother, sister, protect

your soul. A thorny desert surrounds the city.

Let's start walking. There is an oasis out there,

somewhere, and I am damn well going to find it.  

James Lee Jobe

Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir

Having plenty of stimuli makes it easy for us to distract ourselves from what we’re feeling. But when there is silence, all these things present themselves clearly. 

Thich Nhat Hanh

I’m getting older. I like being at home, cooking, listening to Miles Davis. Maybe watch a ballgame. I don’t need to go to Topeka or Newark. I sit and think things over, forget it all, and then re-think it all over again. Who cares? You never know how many times you’ll get to orbit this ol’ sun. Why not just relax?

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James