a black kid
as I was carrying out stuff
“you moving?”
“yeah, to a farm.”
“oh . hey, is your sister moving too?”
yeah, to the city
To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015
Tag: Culture
A LOVE OF WORDS, INDEED
Susquehanna remains one of my favorite words in the language. (And to think, it’s an import, from the New World.) I love the way the syllables dance around in the mouth and roll off the tongue.
So what is your favorite word?
~*~
For more of my exploration of the word in its world, click here.
PRELUDE & FUGUE 49/
to lovers who were never quite present
* * *
good-bye in the night who never were lovers
repeatedly saying good-bye in the night
who never were lovers repeatedly saying
good-bye in the present night who
never were tubercular contortions or squiggles
good-bye tubercular squiggles to lovers’ night
repeatedly saying never quite contortions
squiggles repeatedly saying good-bye
to lovers never quite tubercular night
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
AFTERNOON AT OUR THIRD-FLOOR APARTMENT WINDOW
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
ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S GRAND FUNERAL MARCH
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.
RAISING THE STAKES
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.
A STUDY IN SPIRITUAL CONTRASTS
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.)
SAGE COUNSEL
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.
PRELUDE & FUGUE 46/
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.
FIELD GUIDE
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.
Jnana's Red Barn 