the dreams in your pocket

the end of summer

One can tell from the way the heat lays across the land 

like a blanket you can't kick off 

that time is winding down 

you wear time like clothing 

all is quiet    you don't reach for a book 

and you don't walk to the door 

you don't call for a friend 

there are dust particles floating in the light from the window 

and you watch those   you'll die one day 

and until that happens other people will die 

some you love    some you don't 

part of the room is sunlight and part is in shadow 

you become aware of your breath and you stand 

but you don't have any place to go 

or anything to do 

james lee jobe

"Every morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most."

Buddha 

and that day the pancakes will be perfect  

a day will come when you sing arias like Maria Callas 

perfectly    and the adoring audience will toss roses 

at your pedicured feet    you will pick up just one rose 

kiss it and toss it back as if you did this every day 

in one pocket is a list of the dreams you still hold dear 

and in another pocket is the list of things you need 

to pick up from the store    you see    nothing is forgotten 

exiting the concert hall    a driver in a crisp black suit 

will hold the limousine door for you and you will say 

"to the grocer and then home"    the driver ease into traffic 

as overhead the sun is suddenly free of the clouds 

and a light like white gold shines down on your life 

and into your body    filling you with the warmth of the universe 

it is then that you will reach into the pocket for your dreams 

james lee jobe

“One may prefer spring and summer to autumn and winter, but preference is hardly to the point. The earth turns, and we live in the grain of nature, turning with it.”

Robert Hass

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jlj 

nine bows

we belong

me to my people

my people to this place

this Putah Creek watershed

the watershed and valley belong together

like a family

the valley with the earth

the earth with the solar system

the solar system with the universe

all that is 

is one

we belong

life touches life

which touches life again

I bow nine times

in gratitude 

james lee jobe 

There is within you that which is beyond birth and death, beyond success and failure. It just knows that you are, and it is.

Yoshin David Radin

friend 

welcome to your life

if you are reading these words then you are alive 

and that beats the alternative 

it’s marvelous 

breathe in and exhale out 

heartbeat boomBoomBOOM like a drum 

sky above and the earth below 

and you get to think for yourself 

try it sometime 

james lee jobe

Children are taught to question and challenge in ways that are good for dharma. Buddhadharma goes deeper when you question. Value comes from challenging and investigating.

Kyabgön Phakchok Rinpoche

My ancestors? I can say their names, and I can say their places, going back four centuries. I know their dates and years. All of that is a part of me. I know these things but I don’t obsess on them, Their DNA is my DNA. The past is a fog that you walk through, nothing more. 

The descendants? I can’t know them. They will come when I have gone. I can try to improve the world a little for them, and I can leave them some poems. Perhaps that way they will know my name and my place. And my DNA will be their DNA.

There is a pattern to it all. Can you see it? Something of the old ones is passed to the new ones, over and again.

james lee jobe 

~links~

the compline, a poem by christian j. collier

the gift, a poem by li-young lee

treeleaf zendo - a digital sangha

haiku eye - haiku by jim young

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james 

smoke in the distance

michael jenna

the creatures that we become

be careful 

in just a moment these woods will burst into flame 

the creatures that we have been until now will just cease to be 

and I do not know what we will become 

and even if I did know    I might not tell you 

whatever we become    the woods will be gone 

and we will need to go into the town to live 

people there love money and possessions 

and little else 

they spend their days folding dollar bills into little boats 

and setting them adrift in the river 

wealth flies through the air like a powerful god 

bankers are the priests 

poverty is shunned and the poor are sent away 

and those who remain do not care 

the houses are all lit up garishly    it is christmas 

in the distance there is smoke from the burning trees 

james lee jobe

"There’s something about silence—it’s like being in the eye of a hurricane. When we can be still, when we’re not trying to figure it out, there’s a knowing and an intuition that we can connect with."

George Mumford

allen koppe

morning    

a cool summer breeze 

hot black coffee and cold sliced tomatoes 

cuban music playing softly in the background 

I am conscious of what a joy it is to be alive 

I don’t believe in any gods 

and yet I want to thank someone 

thank you

james lee jobe 

Since you alone are responsible for your thoughts, only you can change them.

Paramahansa Yogananda

the beatles - I am the walrus

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james 

new and unusual places

from the mountains where we dug the gold as if we were children playing 

from the recital when songs were offered 

up to God, who ignored them again. 

from the river that washed the valley clean 

and rode like a madman 

down to the lips of the sea, 

baptizing everyone in its terrible wake. 

from the mother's kiss on the lips of the child 

for just a moment 

before the coffin was finally closed forever. 

from those dreams where we struggle to do something, 

but fail every time. 

from the seed of Adam down through the years to Noah, 

then to Abraham, David, and Jesus, 

down though the long ages of time, 

generation after generation, 

and so finally to the hungry one 

who sleeps shivering on the doorstep. 

from the cloud to the raindrop, to the earth, to vapor, 

and thus back to the cloud. 

from the sound of more bullets slamming into the wall. 

from the lips of the leaders, a call for profit and blood. 

from the truth in the poems that whisper to our souls. 

from those fears that we will not speak of, not ever.

from the anger that sent us headlong into the deluge, 

and so our trust was broken and the hard years began. 

from the science we deny. 

from the faith we refuse. 

from the long arms of shadow that hold us like a lover. 

now we are waking to the purple sunrise. 

now we are a moment as much as we are human, 

and that which is next begins.

james lee jobe

Interdependence is a fact, it's not an opinion.

Peter Coyote

Heavy winds blew wild through the valley like terrible relatives; it was hard on the trees. Branches broke and attacked the power lines, lights went out. One branch fell and killed a neighbor. People leave flowers where it happened. Still, pollen and seed was scattered into new and unusual places, things will grow because of it. Life is like that, hard and swift, often cruel. Yet beauty happens, too. Nothing is permanent.

james lee jobe

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Many thanks, james 

bent to this task

Their eyes are like blank sheets of paper.

These stanzas are like having to wear a weird shirt. The buttons 

don't line up right. There are no pockets. 

The lines of this poem are a factory that employs 

the dead. Ghosts of people that walk 

on concrete floors, their eyes 

like blank sheets of paper. Do you 

have a pen? Me neither. 

What is a day? Rows and lines 

of broken things - dreams, hopes, love. 

No, that's too hard and I reject it. 

A day is you with your shoes off. 

You are running toward me 

laughing. You are telling me 

about some poet from The Gaza Strip 

or Kentucky.

Where are the jars that hold those things 

we saved? Paper clips and erasers. Odd 

screws and bolts. Jars that didn't have lids 

anymore. That no one wanted, 

like these poems. 

I am bent to this task that I have given myself. 

For fifty years I have kept busy, and now 

I don't think I know how to stop.

james lee jobe

If you attain unsurpassable, complete enlightenment, all sentient beings also attain it. The reason is that all sentient beings are aspects of enlightenment.

Eihei Dogen Zenji

children of delight and sorrow

the hawks scream, playing together on the ceiling of heaven. 

-kenneth rexroth

son, 

we are children of delight and sorrow, we are the sound 

of massive waves against a boulder-strewn beach, we are moonbeams, 

we are a thought of something greater. 

and my dear boy, we are riding on the wings of hawks, we are slipping 

through the walls of heaven like the wind, like feathers, we are infinite, 

souls without end, like dreams. 

and it is almost time to go.

james lee jobe

LINK: Assume the Role of Cassandra, Wearing a Mask, Speaking into the Camera, a poem by Carolina Ebeid

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jlj 

allergic to sociopaths

body as perfect as the wind  

a red-tailed hawk on the hunt  

eyes sharp like razors  

talons sharper  

a flash of rabbit   

a glimpse of a field mouse  

life and death among the wild  

and the free  

james lee jobe

It is better to do nothing than to do what is wrong. For whatever you do, you do to yourself. 

The Dhammapada

I am allergic to many things. Grasses. Trees. Dust. Mold. Sociopaths. I am allergic to cruelty. Heartlessness. Greed. Some of these things make me sneeze, others make me want to vomit. In the news it is clear that America has concentration camps for Latinos without papers. People with their children taken from them, living caged, in some cases, forced to drink from toilets. Today I saw a pick-up truck with a large American flag fluttering from a small pole in the truck bed. That sick feeling returned to my stomach. Again.

james lee jobe

a poem by du fu,  710-770 CE

leaving the city

 

it's frost-bite cold 

and late falling dew muffles 

my gaze into bottomless skies 

smoke trails above the distant salt mines

snow-covered peaks angle shadows 

toward the east

 

even now 

armies haunt my homeland  

and war-drums throb here 

a guest here in this river city tonight 

I return again to shrieking crows 

my old friends

du fu

riprap - a poem by gary snyder

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jlj