You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Resting on the park bench, she complained
she couldn’t keep pace with her children.
When the seven-year-old pest returned,
demanding, “Ma, give me money”
for a cola, she complied,
thinking it love.
~*~
She couldn’t touch her toes.
~*~
Her legs pushed away from each other, yet
in her cotton dress, unexpectedly
as she swatted a fly, she began to float
and meticulously shrank from sight,
bouncing along the horizon.
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Copyright 2015
in the dune of the black-eyed Susan
a schedule diametrically opposed to my own
* * *
a stargazer adjusts a pile of broken
shell and black-eyed Susan polished by sea-spray
in the dune behind an urchin
adjusting broken shell, the black-eyed Susan
polished by mist, the blanched dune
kelp adjusting a pile of broken shell
and black-eyed Susan polished
by surf sweeping along the dune
an astronomer adjusts a schedule diametrically opposed
to purple shoreline in the type case of shells and dull-edged
glass where my own pile of green stones in the box of shells
pile up a schedule diametrically opposed to dull-edged glass
the purple astronomer adjusts the typeface in case
shoreline shells pile his green-stone telescope somehow
diametrically opposed to any heavenly schedule he attempts
tuning the dull-edged glass of my own type case of shells
piles in a schedule diametrically opposed to dull-edged
green stones along shoreline where I’ve set my own telescope
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
with distances
our skin
our heart
our thoughts
the countryside
a big city
such poverty and misfortune
such glittering opulence
visibly and invisibly
blinding
even before the mildew
* * *
my turtle shell my weakness
three times I’ve prayed it not be moved
* * *
casting addiction
or promiscuity
or crime
along racial
or ethnic
or neighborhood
in or out of
where charity is not supple
communion
no hour
attended as fully as we might
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.
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.
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
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
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.
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
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
ceramic dragon as a weed patch with teeth
you, me, it
don’t forget the oyster crackers
* * *
the repose of an attic ceramic dragon
papered in autumn foliage of a white T-shirt
and four blue candles caps a corner mattress
with weeds and a sequoia the attic room reposes
in a white T-shirt, a blue cap feeds on a corner mattress
the tile dragon ignites four candles with weeds
a sequoia papers autumn foliage over the reposing feed
that rooms in a white T-shirt and blue feed cap
a repairman walks past a weed patch
with teeth in white shorts
climbing a gray windmill two people
walk past as weeds with teeth patch
white shorts on two people climbing
a gray windmill repairman walks past
two people in white shorts and gray
windmill teeth climb a weed patch
in a corner in a weed mattress and sequoia
four candles won’t forget the oyster crackers
nor tile ceramic dragon papered in autumn foliage
all the repose of an attic room of four candles fed
a white T-shirt and blue feed cap a mattress
corners a tile ceramic dragon with weeds
and a sequoia papered in autumn foliage feed
don’t forget the oyster crackers atop four candles
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
the reality of who we are
becomes too unbearable
to sustain
the animal, adorned
over shame
crawl away, then
in whose image
of Creation
are we naked?
O Holy One
casting light within
the diverse exhaustion
yet exposes
and heals
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.
a rabbit in a bow-tie and party hat
laughs at a departing alligator
people holding umbrellas float over the stage
drowning the kittens as an adult act of mercy
people in yellow raincoats
floating under pink umbrellas
set against clouds
the woodcut sheep now resemble Georgia
a plain chair topped by a salmon-fish rung
a flock of sheep already dyed
twenty-two pigs come singing on the bare ground
“Simple Gifts” in operatic voice
a woodcut of a full stream laughing through a birch forest
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
light in shimmering bronze
illuminates maritime charts and sails
unfurling with desires, an escape
in the apex of broad wakes
who you think you are
doesn’t matter
when the tide turns
a band from the North Star
turns toward harbor –
glints of affirmation or rebuke from a stranger –
ruffles bells and rigging
identities don’t matter
when the wind turns
off we go, then, and this time
this world or this way and then another
five seals, headed north
their heads sparkling with stars
disappearing quickly
the austerity of beach swept clear
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of seacoast poems, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 