ALWAYS WASH THOSE HANDS

July 26, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

and that’s the really frightening thing
the bomb-sniffing dog
on the way to the Laundromat, before

~*~

I’ve had enough this season
to satisfy my sensibilities
though it’s still unseasonably warm
and raining

lingering
over
food

this buzzing
finds pollen
wherever
our sun warms

~*~

yet to the Appropriate Authorities
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the United States Government

unrelated by family or livelihood
my next-door neighbor
together on numerous occasions
I further state
intelligent, industrious, socially responsible
capable of

very truly yours,
the prodigal son, without the dissipation

To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015

INVITATION TO FLIGHT

July 25, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

On one of my solitary walks with Kokopelli, I admire the fullness of purple-tipped grasses along the canal bank. Some offer bunched, short seeds in clusters. Others have long-shafted seeds in plumes. Or oblong, spiked seeds suspended like bells. “There must be a thousand golden variations,” I tell him. Oats. Wheat. Barley. Bread and beer. Silk-enshrouded ears of corn for sweet butter. Fat tender steaks. Sour whiskey mash. Like some people I knew. The many named needles and strands of whips and brushes reach skyward, flaying the wind, inviting birds to flight.

For more insights from the American Far West and Kokopelli, click here.

FANFARE

July 24, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

a well-crafted turbine
a flower in bloom
the blades of a large jet engine
a honeycomb exhaust fan

no stops for granola bars

this anatomy of a rippling stone in the stream, a fingerprint

no monkeys
in the Squirrel Temple

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.

IN THE RECIPE FOR A MYSTERY NOVEL

July 23, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Does a mystery novel have to revolve around a detective? Even a charming amateur? Or can it focus instead on the leading suspect?

In proposing a book with the working title, Dinner to Die For, I envisioned an anonymous restaurant critic who works for an independent television station. How to handle the visuals for each review would have posed an interesting challenge, something quite unlike the so-called Phantom Gourmet who has since become a popular staple on a New England cable news channel. He’s widely recognized on the street, for one thing.

Well, the novel never moved forward. This project was predicated on two collaborators, who eventually declined, however discretely.

Still, enough remained to slip into my newest book, Along the Parallel Tracks of Yin and Yang.

As a further twist, my biggest novel on the way is also about food and restaurants. This time, from the inside. And I promise, it won’t be a mystery.

~*~

For these stories and more, visit Thistle/Flinch editions.

RETURN

July 22, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

1

slowly approaching a line
that grows from the edge of the sea
and then spreads at the harbor mouth

slowly, details emerge
and at last, some recognition
in what’s become familiar

home, or at least neighborhood
extending

attuned here, more than elsewhere

the awareness, something all your own
has happened with this place
but not knowing precisely when

in the tide
returning

2

introductions, by degrees
lapping and receding

even in six hours

Plum Island with Eric, Bill
and the baby, “Why don’t we leave our towels
down there?” rather than the crest of the dune

“you’ll see”
once the surf bubbled inches
from our possessions

or high tide covering the jetty
that shaded the sailboat venturing out

or entering a ferry on one deck
and exiting
on the return, from another

or weather

on a carefully selected
Sunday picnic, and air
optimal for swimming at the sandbar
only to have the Coast Guard
pull up in an inflatable raft with a bullhorn
“Out of the water! A storm’s coming!”
while the sky’s still cloudless but
before we reach shelter two hundred
feet away, the sun’s gone and a deluge opens

with or without hail

or the mid-afternoon ferry
through twenty-foot swells
and returning at sunset
on calm water

not that we’re friends
or have much of what you’d call
a relationship

3

miles inland, closer to the house
detecting high tide in marshes and rivers
or its absence

salt hay in cow milk

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.

GETTING ACCLIMATED

July 21, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

As I wrote at the time:

It’s the third straight day of temperatures above ninety, with humidity to match. Still, we’ve avoided a miserable July this year, and the heat has not locked itself into the house: we’ve been able to cool everything overnight. What strikes me is that we’re no longer floored by the oppression. We simply move slower, more deliberately. Avoid using the oven. (We’ll grill outdoors this afternoon.)

In other words, we’ve adjusted ourselves to seasonal change.

Come winter, we’ll have to brace ourselves all over again for biting cold. What will be bitter in November or December will instead feel balmy come February or March.

At the office, I know that any sharp change in the weather brings an increase in obituaries. We can joke about the shift that sends those who are barely hanging on over the edge, but the numbers support us. People in climate-controlled chambers all the same responding to minor shifts in barometric temperature or dew points, all the same. Do we inhale and exhale something other than air?

Spaces I’ve entered where silent prayer or meditation are already under way all felt set apart from their surroundings. I’ve sometimes described it as diving into water and swimming beneath the surface or like entering a pressurized rare-book library.

Returning to the ashram and its grounds after being away presented a similar sensation, as have old Quaker meetinghouses, even years after their regular use.

Live within that energy, and you no longer notice it – it’s simply the way life is. Leave it, though, and you can feel you are falling through space, for weeks on end.

~*~

For more Seasons of the Spirit, click here.

ON OUR OWN GROUND

July 20, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

each springtime and summer
we go our rounds, grubbing out

pervasive maple sprouts, glistening slugs
the evil elegance of bindweed

to open way
for what flowers or what bears would harvest

each repetition its own mixture
of success and disappointment

* * *

as my Lady of the Fabric Bins explains
the palette of the tongue

its savory and sweet
variations of wine tannin or bite

torches in our smoking garden twilight
with charcoal, glowing and ready

ALL OVER AGAIN. OUT OF NOWHERE

July 20, 2017June 5, 2017 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Why wait for the dust to settle? Here are 10 bullets from my end.

~*~

A bit of gardening before Meeting for Worship. A round of picking raspberries, peas, string beans. Blueberries and currants are next to ripen.
One foot in the present, the other in the past. Not just a pattern for dreams. It’s intrinsic to the process of writing. Add to that smells, sounds, touch, taste.
I love the concept of the Commonplace Book – a kind of scrapbook of observations of a personal journey. It’s related to the tradition I discovered in whaling ship logs.
The logbooks, by the way, had a specific form, which by 1840 came in printed versions with columns H, W, K – hour, wind, knots – plus course and comments like “lost sight of land” or notations of birds seen. Across the bottom of each page are other notes, such as latitude and longitude or the distance traveled in a day, where I saw up to 140 miles recorded. Turns out the entries also helped determine or justify extra rations for the crew and so on, depending on the conditions. Wonder how that format would work as a personal journal.
What do we make of rounds of thunderstorms, interrupted by bursts of sunlight, knowing more weeds and garden slugs are on the way?
The Portsmouth Greek Festival differs from ours in Dover. Their event has two food lines, rather than one, and an outdoor tent for dancing. It all takes place behind the church, rather than miles away. I’m surprised how little interaction there is between the two Orthodox congregations.
Been meditating for 66 years now, one way or another upholding the spiritual discipline. More than half of that time has been as a member of Dover Friends, worshiping in our 1768 Quaker meetinghouse. Some of the members have been there the whole time with me. (How could that be? Already!)
I’m not a big fan of comparative religion, looking for commonalities and similarities. I’m more interested in vital differences and nuance. How far this is from what I’d envisioned, back when I was largely agnostic.
In a very fragile condition, a snake having just shed its skin.
What was the biggest mistake in my life? (Or in yours?)

~*~