Translating Light Into Words

Yolo County Farmland

—Poems and Photos by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
 

Raindrops like teeth, the enamel of god.

A horse of lightning. A tractor of thunder.
The muddied boots of the children,
waiting forlornly by the front door. A wet winter,
here to move water back to the earth, and back to the ocean.
You can cry or laugh or find a drum to pound.
You can catch a bus to Dayton or Tulsa.
This isn't fate. This isn't preordained.
Nothing is preordained.
If I were foolish enough to make predictions or claims
I would tell you of dark-haired, dark-eyed girls dancing to gypsy music.
I would say that the government is lying about the shape of the world,
lying about the dreams that wake you with a shudder,
lying about everything. I am living now in the silence of things,
sleeping in the dusty corners.
Accept the finality of the human experience.
Raindrops like teeth, the enamel of god; I am a being of light,
and I refuse to answer to anyone less than god.

_________________

Winter, afternoon, California's vast Central Valley.

The wind whips the trees like an evil master
and blows the rain sideways.
An elm tree branch breaks away and brings down
a power line, a few houses go dark.
Water rises, somewhere a levee fails,
an old man tries to drive across the flooded roadway
when he shouldn't; determination
isn't always the proper choice in life.
Here, inside my house, it is warm and dry.
Snug.
My birds watch the weather
through the sliding glass door of the patio.
The larger one is munching on walnuts
and listening to the Verdi aria on the radio.
It's lovely, the music. 

 Yolo County, Grasslands

You are taking a walk beside the river. Look at the water, is it not more beautiful than the sheen of a diamond? Like tomorrow. Like love. Like the slender hands of the angels under starlight. The trees drink your most kind thoughts and are silver in return. They reward your faith with a new name. It is full-on winter and you can feel the cold crispness of heaven with your nose and your ears. You feel a love for god and you look up at the sky, even though you know that the divine is inside of you, in your own golden heart. In your own diamond soul.

_________________

Putah Creek. Summer. Daybreak.

The creek, always moving,
slides by at the very place
where night and morning cross paths,
and then goes on past
on its way to heaven. 

Yolo County, Toward the Vaca Hills
 

I live in the Sacramento Valley, it is tremendous, it goes on and on. Each of us here walk through the valley the same way, and yet each of us is different. A life is a life, yet no two are truly the same. And my life? In summer, I trust the morning dew, and in winter I trust the valley tule fog. I put my faith in the deer grass and manzanita, in the blue oak and the grey pine. I live in this valley, a part of it.

________________

Pretend that our country is a flag
that stands for wealth and power.
Pretend that our country is a symbol
that stands for greed and heartlessness.
Here we lay down the bodies of the poor
in a long line, painted red, white, and blue.
There is gunfire nearby. The dead students fall
while our leaders play golf and snort cocaine.
In a church, the faithful pray.
In the streets, the angry rage.
Nothing changes. There is a stink of death.

 
Yolo County, Weirs Below Old River Road in West Sacramento

Listening is love, and empathy is a blessing. Is your progress through life slow? Does it sometimes seem so? Then stop completely. Just let go and be still. Watch. Listen. Every stop is a chance to learn. And what is gained by going fast? If you can tell me, I’ll listen. Being a human being is like translating light into words.

________________

We're alive, so we breathe and we love. In a home, there is often the silence of two. But through the strength of years spent knowing one another comes also the laughter of stories told—and sometimes retold. Heads close together over coffee and the life of a long marriage. Each one close to the thoughts of the other. Love, the wide bond that goes beyond blood, is alive in the children, in the grandchildren, in memory and deed. This is tomorrow, this is now, endless and without bounds.

(for Alexandra)

 Yolo County, A Bridge Over Cache Creek


Today’s LittleNip:

February. Above this farmland
a cold sunrise stripes the sky.
A heron slips through the reeds
in the green, swift creek.
"Who am I?" —I ask the new sun.

"Only you know." —comes the answer.

—James Lee Jobe

____________________

Thanks to James Lee Jobe this morning for his fine poems and photos! And a reminder that this morning, 9:30am, Writers on the Air presents frank andrick, Lynette Blumhardt and open mic down at Sac. Poetry Center. You’re supposed to RSVP if you’re going; scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.


—Medusa

James Lee Jobe, Yolo County Poet

Celebrate Poetry!

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