You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
white body
with black wingtips
on white sky
a gull flitted past
the third-floor apartment window
on an overcast day
the next afternoon
panes sliced sunlight
onto a bubbling aquarium
that opened as butterfly wings
on the opposite wall
still, she was a question mark
who made him a question mark
in return
my Indiana, so faraway then
To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015
a tight-cropped raccoon staring full of question
in the green leaves in front of an intricately tiled wall
a white panther spews water
into a pool of lilies
320 days a year you’d be hungry
an owl in snowfall
three landscapes, including a road through a desert
a smiling fisherman holds a salmon
the length of his leg
twelve neckties a father would love:
none of them fit for the office
roulette wheel with a ducky decoy
for games no player can win
egos as a blindfold
tied with leather work gloves
the pink smoke, uncoiling
wordlessly
shocks of wheat
around a woman in dream
two more windmills
half of the sky, a rusty eggshell
a flame
as an open door
a clock and classical portrait suspended on ribbon
wind mill manufacturers in Batavia, Illinois
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
what if the tide never turns
but waits to be submerged
in the next high tide
one after another until
the whole city is inundated?
sailboats would go under
on their moorings, perhaps still
rocking mostly one side
from perpendicular
the wharf and its autos
would mean nothing
while the moon ignores her orbit
masts sway
like speedometers
or gauges
missing their dials
a whirlpool, however large or compact
swirls within myriad currents
that knit the harbor
some talk of changing public opinion
or the incumbent party
but don’t reckon the vortex
swimmers approach
laughing to each other
any remorse
over their drowning
will ring hollow
while ducktrap is a fish
a store touts its Ducktrap Decoy
whether for some waterfowl or the fish
lingers in question
awaiting a retort
from Daffy, Donald, or Daisy
as for the fish? only silent
disdain
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.
The kids raise a valid point when they notice how much we teach them about Quakers back then – but what about now?
Yes, what about NOW!
We need to get our act more together and acknowledge many of the remarkable ways we continue to witness today, usually in individual callings that deserve more support from the rest of us. So maybe the kids’ question can help us better focus on our greater purpose.
I’d like us to proclaim more of the courageous work of Friends internationally, too – I can think of examples in Cuba and Kenya in our own time.
Not all of the action involves peace and forgiveness issues, either.
Consider, too, two points from a visit to an Evangelical Friends Church on the other end of the Quaker spectrum from my own Meeting:
“Is Jesus Christ going to be exalted and praised?”
Her shocked look haunts me, considering the big Quaker gathering where I’m headed. I think, Yes, but in ways you wouldn’t recognize.
Also, humbly, as another realizes from one difficult exchange with a customer at her business previously that week: “I may be the only Jesus they’ll see.”
Now we’re talking business.
~*~
For similar thoughts, check out Religion Turned Upside Down.
Could it be like travel, where being free of your usual surroundings and routines engenders a rush of fresh sensations and perspectives yet, at the end, leaves you appreciating home all the more? For some, this is a matter of going abroad, revisiting favorite destinations or exploring somewhere altogether unfamiliar, although a backpacking trek or canoeing through wilderness will also deliver. Think of something as simple as a hot shower or bath, if you must, after days or weeks of deprivation.
I’m finding a parallel in my encounters with Greek Orthodox culture and faith in my town – consider it, in part, research for my newest novel-in-progress – and my extensive Quaker practice.
Both streams face the struggle of maintaining a distinct culture and identity in contrast to the generic Christianity – mainstream Protestant or Roman Catholic – that prevails in American awareness. Both, in fact, are generally invisible to the rest of the populace. (It does give us sensitivity, then, to others like Jews and Muslims who are not of that general fabric.) Both also run into the tensions of marriage where one spouse continues in the faith while the other is not a participant – how is the tradition passed on to a next generation? Or does it become extinct or ambiguously reconfigured? (Growing up, I had no clue of my family’s long Quaker ancestry.)
Just a taste of what’s popping up. In case you were looking for a prompt.
~*~
~*~
one bit of good news
remove debris and deport from one side
for her garden, relocating the piles
in shadowed cesspool, a bonfire, a second
live-trap a dozen spewing squirrels
the as-yet unspecified glade
even without feathered friends
concentrates on the emerging line and shape
a full-time task
regarding implanted hierarchy
“Your generation just doesn’t know
how to have fun” and delight in
thirst
out of the house and about
so you’d admit nearing release
nearing an island
with us, the race to plant bulbs
would always have a late start
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
Master intricate knots. Trout flies, for example. Especially in your dreams.
Be astounded by what any feather can do.
~*~
Mice, even snakes, leave their tracks in the dust.
Follow them, to their hideaway.
Knock at the entrance and enter.
Come home, explaining, “Last night my mind blossomed.”
~*~
Pulling into the barnyard, I find another paradox of spiritual discipline: the practitioner becomes simultaneously rooted in flight.
~*~
By now, I’ve been away so long I no longer feel the memory.
How large was that spider?
If we had looked at each other, I would have seen. I was free to go home, even if it took another forty years to get here. March straight into that horizon? And then?
~*~
In cloud wisps two soaring ravens turn about.
They wheel from great land in the sky.
The black rings under my eyes are gone.
~*~
For more insights from the American Far West and Kokopelli, click here.
cruelty that arises from bitterness
spanning a rocky streambed
* * *
the Japanese bow to India
with its dry ferns and maple
with its fronds becoming a cob of ribbon
in the dry fronds of Japanese
ferns and half-devoured cobs
the Indian maples bow and dry
cobs of corn and fronds
in Japan the Indian bows
as the ferns and maple
dry fronds of Japan maple
cobs of Indian corn from
stepping down to the streambed
a staircase cruelly arises
from rocky bitterness, yes, a staircase
cruelty that rocky that bitter
from that staircase cruel, yes,
arises rocky and bitter
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
No, we can’t ignore our glorious fall foliage.
My slide shows and Yankee autumn essays archived in the New England spirit category, August-November 2013, of my Chicken Farmer I Still Love You blog are well worth revisiting. Our regional character comes forth in the intense, all-too-brief flurry from summer into long winter.
Take the tour, if you haven’t already. No wonder we treasure the color! And feel free to react with your comments.
First, the slide shows, beginning with a hike before the color shifts and a taste of the apple harvest. And then the sequence of full autumn foliage:
And then, ponder the influence all this has on our emotions and thinking:
~*~
Click away as you will.
Jnana's Red Barn 