Tenacious Kindness

Tenacious kindness, sometimes only as thin as a spider web thread amid the tangles of what is worst in us, weaves together the fabric of what is best about us.

Me, 2020+/-

Hearty Steward

I'm stewing
Not savoring
Not flavoring
Not favoring this mixture of feelings
that bubble up
and bubble under.

I could turn off the flame that feeds the simmer,
but then I wouldn't get the full bodied experience
of a rich hearty stew!

But I am not food for thought,
and I am not a pot.

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.

I am not carrots, potatoes, peas, tomatoes cooked down to sauce,
I am not a stew.
I am not all the lives I might have lived, either.
I am me, and you are you.

Uncover.
Let the stew thicken by evaporation for a while,
then recover. Lower the flame.
As the hours go by,
Let all the thoughts and concerns take their turns in the changing heatscape.
Eventually, remove the lid and set it aside.
Capture the nuances of scents and flavors as they rise.

Breathing in, I know I am breathing in.
Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.
A preparer's prayer for presence.

Serves.

Now and Then the Bumblebee

I watched a bumblebee

in the paloverde tree

sampling sugars from small yellow flowers.

And for a while 

there was no history

except as regarded the lineage of the bee.

Close Muted

Office building

I am in

has a win-

dow that doesn't

o-

pen.

I hear birds chirping in the tree,

muted by double paned glass, I see

them jump and flit from ground to branches

and sing sparrow songs so thoroughly.

Maybe they have found renewed voices

discovering options for more creative choices

in the year and a half-plus that they've been unhampered

by our relentless human noises.

I wish I could open the window and hear them completely.

and listen all day as they sing so freely.

A Picnic

Abandoned wheelhouse,

hot humid day.

Captain of the ship (a boat with a shade awning) is on the shore of the lake

smoking a cigarette.

The crew of two (the wife and the daughter) are lugging the lemonade and the beer and bag of sandwiches and snacks through knee deep muddy water

to ankle-deep

to wet sandy feet

to the blanket he laid down on somewhat soppy Bermuda grass.

The flies on alert,

the mosquitoes’ flight-pitch elevating,

a puff of smoke disorients them

but only momentarily.

“You shouldn’t smoke!”

comes the call from just up-shore,

from a kid with a stick poking holes in the mud.

“It scares away the bugs,” says the captain with a stain-toothed smile.

The picnic is ready.

The cigarette is stubbed out.

The eating commences.

The ants began marching

when the blanket went down.

Treetops and Rooftops

Out my kitchen window is a lovely eastern golden morning view of treetops and rooftops

that sometimes actually glisten.

and then, of course, as I knew when I made the decision to live there,

the inevitable relationship with the alley.

It’s an alley; people use it as a bypass or a hiding place.

This morning I saw a young man walking slowly up the alley,

dressed for a Sunday afternoon on a Monday morning.

I adjusted the blind so he wouldn’t see me looking

and plugged in the coffee pot.

Was he calm or lost in thought?

Out of a driveway a car crept up the center of the alley behind him, super slowly.

I turned to put the bread in the toaster and set the butter beside it.

I went back to the window. The car had stopped.

He had stepped in front of it like Superman. But I couldn’t read the mood—

he walked around to the driver’s open window

and leaned his hips full contact with the door to talk.

I got the milk for the coffee.

I looked again. Now a woman was out of the car, embracing him.

She was dressed for work.

Did I hear crying? Murmurs.

Consoling? Arguing?

Pleas? Admonishments?

It all just sounded so watery, distant.

But then she sobbed pain and hurt or was it anger?

I looked down to butter the toast

and when I looked again she was back in the car,

and there was some kind of continuing exchange…

“Don’t drag it out,” I said to no one but me, “Just drive away.”

It really was none of my business so I ate my breakfast.

I don’t know what she did.

But when I brought my empty dishes to the sink,

there was no sign of either of them,

just the view of the treetops and the rooftops,

colors sharpening in the day’s advancing light,

and the alley of course.

JO'S/ 2016

Walking to the Store

Waiting at the red light to cross the big street,

I always step back from the curb to be visible, as I am vulnerable.

Across the several lanes of traffic

a silver car slows to make a right (it has the light).

I catch sight of the woman driving with smooth confidence,

steady agency,

and it occurs to me,

(perspective: historically)

fearlessness reigns

with the car as the apparatus,

as there and there and here and there they go,

finally, the commoners have attained knighthood status

each and all

(ostensibly so)

clad in a suit of armor.

Gift from the Gray

Toward the window:

what is that funny sound

crackling against the pane

it taps in rapid staccato

what phenomenon? It's the rain!

It seems that I forget it happens

between dry lengths of day to days

and even as the clouds gather

habitual thinking says

expect nothing. So joy ensues

when the song begins--

clapping introduction to a hymn

of falling, refreshing

rain.

Let the

soothing

soak

in.

Looking Up

Tonight I looked up

And zeroed in on one star

Missing the wonder I used to feel about stars,

Not even the internal dialogue about

How the light I see tonight emanated long ago.

That conversation wasn’t there.

There was no magic

Just a feeling that the stars,

Well there they just are—

At least the ones we can still see

In our light bleached night sky

And they might be all gone to us eventually

And what if we get used to it?

Once, one spoke to me, offering good sense and comfort as my heart was being broken

But I dismissed it and ran headlong into the night of trying to unravel, undo the reality that was presenting itself; that actually he was gone to me already.

Tonight this star with its clear blue sear 

Said ha, you wonder why you are not wondering.

This time I said thank you.

On a Day

In the end, everything turned out okay,
The grasses grew where the bodies lay,
The sun would bring another day,
The atmosphere filtered fresh in its timeless way
But the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and insects had gone away
With the final exhalations of the whimper.

It didn’t have to happen like this;
Free will came in every culture and form
As did prayers, meditations, contemplations and charms
But Intimidation was let to rule the day

• A thug for Greed and soullessness
• Shining like a beacon calling all to exhausted surrender.

And no, you are not here to read this rhyme,
Unless, of course, the wearing-down failed,
The good was hailed,
The thugs were jailed,
And Love won, and in time.

A Brief Inventory

Please keep the shadows long
and the afternoons golden and green
and our conversations relaxed and easy
remember the birds, they flit from branch to branch,
I like that, too.
And the slow sunset,
and the fresh colors of dusk and twilight,
oh, and night. Dark night, sparkly with stars
and a moon sometimes
but sometimes not.
Mornings gently occur
with a softness to the light of day
a hint of blue and a subtle yellow
and green hills
and fluffy clouds
and sometimes no clouds
and sometimes rain clouds
and sometimes rain
and sometimes snow for some people if they want it,
or wind that doesn't fight anybody very hard
but maybe musses hairdos and clothes a bit
and causes people to duck slightly as they step outside from inside
and makes sparks jump from person to person
or person to thing just a little and always by surprise.
And let's keep storm systems
that clean and wash the sky and rivers and oceans and forests and streets
without making the news.
Yes. All that.
Thanks.

Resting on the Wheel

Driving along a little side-street at fifteen-twenty miles per hour
There's no traffic but you, and it's a good thing I see you coming, big white panel van
veering over across the center
still a good 30 feet away from me.

It's all early morning slow motion
nothing to be alarmed about but hey--maybe so:
Shouldn't you be staying on your own side of the road?

I beep. Your trajectory does not change.
I honk. Your trajectory does not change.
I honk longer.

Now I can see your face, directed downward
but don't worry. I don't think for a moment that you are
dead in there, unconscious, having a health event;
I know the behavior too well
and ah, now maybe you heard my noise,
Yeah no, you still veer, and I am observing in the slo-mo-moment momentum
the diagonal line you defaulted to is unchanging.

I lay on the horn and adjust steering toward the shoulder of the road to make a bay-line around you
and I watch for the eye contact.
Your face lifts slightly and there it is, yeah no:
you raise your face to the direction of the road ahead,
that trick of timing, that tick to tell your conscience you're doing fine, little phone in one hand,
the other resting on the wheel.

Ode to Camping

No hot shower. No soft bed. Sunlight glaring in your face before you are ready to wake. Noisy trailer generators hum at varied distances, masking the sounds of birdsong you wanted to hear. Sap on tabletops. Your ancestors strived to live indoors. Conestoga wagons in the hot sun.

Now there is a caveat: a hike too far from civilization to plug in anything, a remote location where the stars at night seem to arrive in shifts as your eyes adjust to the darkness, a cool snow-melt lake, waves gently curving to shore as they have been since before humans took over, bare basics of food packed in, trash packed out, peace, quiet, observation, near silent walks on soft fallen pine-needles, conversation with like-minded companions, birds that flit, swoop and sing.  Raise the food high away from bears and deer, wrapped well against the squirrels.  Stare at the sky through branches, boughs even, rest. Of course there is a reason to camp. Do I want to go?  No.  But do I want to be there? Of course.

The Spider Feels

That feeling when you’re not afraid of spiders and go out of your way to put them outside when you find them in the house, but as you walk to your car in the summer night you’re pretty sure you walked through a web so you run your hands down your arms and feel that perhaps you’ve brushed off the web and that the spider is not with you, but you feel a little bit like a bad actor who doesn’t really commit to the role and you know you’re not certain that you’ve accomplished the task—if there was a spider at all.

That feeling that feels like a three quarters truth that there was no spider; it was just a stray hair falling along your bare arm, you get in the car and begin the drive home, a block or two a tickle: is that the light touch of spider feet on your hand? Can’t look. Traffic to contend with no it must be that hair.

That feeling as you recognize in no uncertain terms spider tracks on your hand so you fling and shake the hand outward toward the passenger seat and figure you’ve launched the spider away to somewhere else in the car. You don’t want to open the window and kill it, but please stay in your own territory Spider, now you have your place.

That feeling as you drive down the boulevard that maybe there was no spider and the lady on the radio is talking about her life so the subject is now in the past, irrelevant.

That feeling as your peripheral vision captures, as if a cartoon silhouetted against the driver’s side window, a really big spider dropping from the ceiling working its web line for dear life and you flinch (and you drive safely!) and though you know that spider is more disrupted and more scared of you than you are of it, still you're sent into the throe of a squirm, wiggle and a vocal pitch of a “whoop-whoop!”

Focusing on driving skill you make your turn and turn again into the alley to slow by tree branches so you can open the window and let the spider out and you finally get a good look: stripes like a zebra, spotted like a leopard, the size of a nickel! Relief it’s not the orb weaver whose boundaries you’d been so bent on respecting all week.

That feeling where you hope you didn’t just accidentally crush it between the window and the frame, and you haven’t, and you introduce it to its new home but it now knows only you and tries to stay, or maybe it’s confused because it is rushing toward you as if panicked so you open the door and with the motion it drops on its line to the alley floor so you close the door and race away. That painful suspicion that the spider is still attached to the car, hanging on for dear life like James Bond on the rail of a helicopter in the Alps.

You don’t have much farther to go and you pull into the garage, park and close the garage door. You open the car door and there—it—is. It has made it through so much, still trying to get a semblance of place it perches on the bottom of the car door frame. Is it catching its breath?

That feeling as you get out of the car and look to the shelves and grab for something to capture it in and you find the lid of a spray paint can. Now you can catch the spider and put it on a plant. That is all you wanted.

That feeling as it quickly drops to the garage floor and runs under the car and away. Fair enough.

That feeling as you leave the scene to go into the house that spiders are crawling on you. That sense persisting as you take care of a few chores. The quick spin and brush of the arms, pats of your shoulders, slaps at ghosts of spider webs as they suggest themselves again and again.

How sensitive we are to these ages old relationships. Human to spider, since forever ago I’m sure—sudden surprise entanglements that linger.

The Super Guru on the Fence

"Ah Wise Children, in your hurry to sound profound take care to avoid jumping to conclusions." - The Super Guru on the Fence

I am the Super Guru on the Fence-- at least for today.

Sports Thoughts

I have tried many times to discover an appreciation for sports, but this is as far as I ever get:


"Hmmm... the shape of the play area is interesting. The colors are pretty. I wonder what the fabric is. I hope they aren't getting brain damage... wow there are a lot of logos around the field. Are the color commentators gonna ever stop talking [when watched on TV of course]. Hmmm... look at the sky. The stars are out during the daytime, we just can't see them, except the sun. The sun is a star. The universe is so big... it's infinite. What is infinity? Those are nice outfits the athletes are wearing. What time is it?"

Ode to a Republican Tax Plan

The devil will give you candy
and pat you on the head
and make you think you're better off
by following his plans.
He'll show bullet points on paper
but stop you from turning the page
"Just take your sweet treats and we'll take care of the rest!"
Is what he always says.
But the rest isn't a sweet nap,
It's a long and twisted night.
and no matter how you reach and lurch
you can't turn on the light.

Mettle

We dance and we leap,

paint fine facial features, sing arias,

build bridges, streets and cityscapes.

We tend to our children

and the weakest among us.

We kill and we creep,

go along to get along, justify,

demolish subtle ideas.

We abandon ourselves

like an addict exhausted.

Capable of everything possible

we can be magnificent,

and also we can

lose conscience and tenacity.

Calls for optimism become

some long lost book

of famous last words

found buried deep in rubble

by anthropological sorts

in a future to be determined.

No mettle, compassion, or commitment to love

constitutes a cycle of abuse.

Look at pictures of armies for tyrants

and civilizations that fall to the will—

some for lack of support, some may surmise

that some dictated end justifies

fueling the hate, and Hate lies.

So: No.

Mettle, compassion, and commitment to love.

Break the cycle of abuse.

Look at pictures of activists for peace

and societies that stand up to the cruel—

some for show of support, some may surmise

that what speaks for our species thrives

in nurturing empathy, and Empathy arrives.

Yes.

Mettle.

Compassion, and commitment to love break the cycle of abuse.

We dance and we leap

in a future to be determined.

Underneath a Stormy Sea

Underneath a stormy sea
that'd pitch a ship and wobble sealegs,
that'd hitch a hip to bend to nausea
that'd already shifted the seabirds inland for shelter
fish swim
in beautiful caverns.

12-19-2016:

Swimming hard to the surface to break the skin of the nightmare and awake into daylight

with sun shining, birds singing, a fresh breeze.
The roar--a memory to shake; an exaggeration of a fear raised by the unconscious
But no.
the world has dipped its head under
and decided to stay.
Inhale the inky water
and begin a dream
that flips the world on its head.
Sleep is the new
awake.
Awake. Hushed at parties, careful until you know
who you can talk to
and who
is only
for polite smiles
and swift escapes.