You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
one daughter’s been sitting a California king snake
(fellow dad Eric’s quite impressed)
a friend’s rabbit, quite a thumper
“We thought books were falling from the shelves”
when the daughter babysat, and so the kids slept in the big bed
and I snoozed off in the loft
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
October is one of my favorite times for sitting and working in the loft of the barn. The sun no longer turns its air intolerably stuffy but rather adds some welcome comfort. I can still leave the loft door open for natural light and fresh air, if I want. And just look what’s happening around me!
When you walk into the expanse, keep going. Maybe you’ll meet a dwarf at creekside. Maybe a bear. If you do, you must speak respectfully and listen closely to the reply. Even if they call you a yokel, as Kokopelli did.
~*~
A dust storm — sandstorm — and they close the highway.
You must wait. Cover your mouth and eyes.
~*~
On high ridges, bachelor Basque shepherds follow their flocks all summer. Each one and his dogs rarely encounter anyone who speaks Human.
~*~
Wilderness is about clouds, too.
Now what were you dreaming?
~*~
Guides do appear. Sometimes among fellow practitioners. Maybe even your landlord. Or Kokopelli.
~*~
“Who’s standing on my head?” a totem pole figure wonders.
Just like a typical office.
~*~
Blinking in my field of karma, the reminder:
PENDULUM
swinging
back
winter
NIGHTFALL
It’s not the first time.
Be faithful and wait.
~*~
Sometimes a lover becomes a place you want to enter.
Sometimes one’s the space the other envelops.
~*~
Where would I have been without her in that desolate expanse?
~*~
For more insights from the American Far West and Kokopelli, click here.
the pack, as in cards or dogs
or the one after
Enigma Variations but it’s snowing
and there are no birds
finally, a female
cardinal
teapot and cup
beside a four-poster bed
with the long shadows of sunrise
on a plank floor
I love you truly madly deeply
mountain laurel and a Cigar Store Indian
unpainted carved wood
this relationship has changed
four State Supreme Court Justices, their backs together
a Portuguese woman
walking the beach with a TV set balanced atop her head
as the husband waves
leathery kelp as “cloven tongues”
the orderly farm in the Shenandoah overshadowed by two tall silos
nine pitchforks hanging in three rows in a shed
with two gasoline cans and four spades
on tool pegs
a map of Sturbridge Village
a pack of poets or painters or ex-lovers or actors or dancers
could be a loaded deck, all right, shuffled together
4-EVA
at the Hague, then Edinburgh
in the burning letters, her third line
how flat, stretched out under the sun
“Your crimsoning lips”
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
What would you be if you weren’t Quaker?
I usually pose it in terms of religious affiliation, skirting the bigger issue of what we’d be without that particular spiritual discipline and nurture.
The question often illuminates an individual’s leanings within the Society of Friends, and it’s one that can be telling in many other denominations as well.
Many of us come to where we are from other religious traditions, and even among Christians the variations can be vast. And then there are yogis of all stripes, Buddhists, Native practices, arcane and pagan seekers, non-theists, agnostics, and much more. Neo-Muggletonians, anyone?
Some Quakers are very drawn to the social activist side of our community; others, the meditative worship. Some are quite Biblical; others, anything but. (Shall we mention the Gospel of NPR?) And that’s before we get to the full spectrum of today’s Friends, from ultra-univeralist to evangelical to alternative Christian to, well, we’re all over the map. And yes, many of us do miss music in our worship.
180-degree
sweep of ocean
seen from a cliff
great slow curve
of our planet
eight vessels
are barely
specks on this expanse
two seals so close
Rachel observes their features
“here I am”
the great breaking surf
toddler tracks
bird tracks
out for the show
car tires
looping over bicycle
beside shoe
gull, dog, and mouse
imprints in sand
leaving the parking lot
everybody’s
been to the beach
parasailing / surfing
weekend
Juan skirts New England
slams New Brunswick as a tropical storm
a danger of frost on Thursday
or we may be spared
by our proximity to the sea
moonlight
couples
entwined
on sand
man, we’re getting older, America
still ill-at-ease in this dwelling
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.
Decades ago, faced with a question of just what Friends believe, I embarked on an exploration that might provide a more inclusive answer than “Some believe this …” or “Most do that …”
To the surprise of many, the Religious Society of Friends does have a rich underlying theology, one so radical our First Publishers of Truth (one of the original names for the Quaker movement) couldn’t voice it in its fullness in the earliest years before settling into a system of practice rather than fully pursuing its intellectual implications.
Call it an alternative Christianity if you will, but even Friends need to understand its dimensions.
~*~
For more, check out my essays, Religion Turned Upside Down.
The mind dances here and there, rarely in a linear fashion. So what’s on my mind these days? How about counting on these fingers?
~*~
~*~
squirrels thrive, after all, largely solo
apart from the mating chase or bout
though they’ll sleep six or seven together yet
repeated delays that autumn allowed little rest
and precluded burying nuts as well as his lady’s
daffodil and iris bulbs et cetera packed away
what they could, hoping they could cobble a nest
* * *
or any of the time-bombs
ticking away
among the not-so-everyday matters
* * *
you think you’re settled, but you’re not
in any of the different schools of thought
* * *
even on a clouded night, the stars incant
“Look where you are, in your small space”
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
