Precious

Almond Blossoms, Yolo County

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

Even our priests wear masks.
A mask of a swan
Inside of a mask of a crow.
We cannot believe that we are beautiful,
So we wear these things
To hide us from life.
We do the same with language,
Hiding truths inside of lies
While using a lie to rape the truth.
There goes my father, he’s an owl,
No, he’s a laughing hyena,
Here for a corpse to scavenge.
And there goes my mother, she’s an old hen,
No, she’s a dog, a poodle,
Sleeping all day on the sofa.

 Old Elm, Spring, Yolo County

Every life is precious, indeed, every item
Under heaven and across the universe is precious.
Every rock, every clod of dirt
Is a piece of the earth that holds us as home.
The plants, large and small, trees and flowers
And weeds and herbs have a value.
And each worm helps feed the soil
That in turn feeds us.
The salmon, the old barn owl, those are obvious,
But also precious are the mosquito, the roach,
Even the tsetse fly serves some purpose,
And so is blessed, and so blesses us all.
So it is that here before you I give thanks
And praise to the river otter and the raccoon,
To the mighty prairie hen, the jack pine,
The arugula and kale, the valley oak.
Let all step forward and be named.
Every life is precious, indeed, every item
Under heaven and across the universe is precious.
Even man.

 Spring, Yolo Bypass Wildlife Area
 

A coyote walks unknowingly toward a man.
He is a hungry and lean animal. This man
Has a hunting rifle and is downwind, hiding.
He raises chickens and pays taxes on the land.
Who is the hunter and who is the prey?
Above this scene, dusk deepens into night,
Crickets sing. The Sacramento Valley.

____________________

Sunrise still an hour away, full-on
Darkness outside. Going out
For a breath of air I hear
Some morning sounds;
A freight train to my west,
It’s moving north very slowly.
A neighbor’s cat wails mournfully.
I can’t see it, but I know which one.
Closer, the coo of a dove. And so
I add my own voice to this cacophony;
“Hello world. I’m still here.”

 Springtime, Yolo County

Every evening,
Darkness swallows it all,
Even the sun.
Then, come morning,
The darkness is erased
By the light of the sun.
Darkness. Light.
Some creatures prefer
To live in one.
And some creatures
Live in the other.
It isn’t like one way is good
And the other is evil.
I say, sleep when you’re tired,
Play whenever you wish.
I love both, and I love
The wrinkles and bald spots
Of becoming an older man.
There is a time coming
When the darkness will come
And stay.

_________________

Moonrise over Putah Creek,
A family to love—a place to belong.
Fully present and only 62 years old,
How lovely, this moonlight.

 Valley Oak, Early Spring

The last time I ever saw my father
He was a beam of light,
Blue, reaching
From heaven above to the earth below.
Reaching to me.

In life, my father was a complicated man. A hero
In the war, strong on the hardest of battlefields.
In marriage, he was a liar and a cheat, constantly.
He went through his life fueled by good whiskey
And armed with finely made firearms.
My father could not stand a bully. He died at 58.

We agreed on little. He was my role model
Of things to avoid. We fought a lot, followed
By long periods of mutual silence.
In those silences I learned to be a man.

Then my father came to me in dreams.
In the early dreams he was clearly troubled,
Often angry, or upset and weeping.
Sometimes his ghost would be pointing at me.
I would wake up feeling like a criminal.

But slowly, over a couple of decades,
The dreams improved. My father became friendly.
We would sit in cafes and sip coffee and talk.
Conversations that were real.
I would ask him to stay,
And he would smile and say not to worry,
That he would be back soon.

One night when I was a man in my forties
I had best dream of all. My father told me jokes
And we hid from the ghost of his Aunt Dolly
So as not to be interrupted. He said,
“I only come here to haunt you.”

Just like that, it was over. No more dreams.
I was nearly 50. Was I a man now?
I wondered that. Maybe it wasn’t about me,
I thought that. Maybe he needed this.
Perhaps it was time to let my father go.

His name was James Lee Jobe, like mine.
I became James Lee Jobe when I married.
James Elvin Jobe married Alexandra Lee
And we each put the names together.
And I was also James Lee Jobe.
But I wasn’t like him at all.
I had a lot more peace than he ever did.

I began to want to tell him that I loved him.
I needed to say the words to my father,
Words that he and I had used so seldom.
When I went to bed at night, I asked for a dream.
Just one more dream.

It took some time. I was in my mid-50s
When the two James Lees met again.
It was in a dark and silent field somewhere,
We both knew fields in our lives.
A blue beam of light reached from heaven to earth,
Right to my feet. It was simply beautiful.
Blue light shined on me, on the field, on the sky.
I touched the light, and there inside it
Was the face of the other James Lee.
“This is me now, son. I am happy, at peace,
But I can’t keep coming back now. That’s over.”
We each said the words then, and it was done.

My father never returned again,
And I know that he won’t. And that’s alright.
It took us more than a half-century,
But we got there as a father and a son.
Not in the usual way,
But it ended in love and acceptance.

So why am I telling you this?
So you’ll know that you can make it, too.
You might be the drunken parent,
Or you might be the forgotten child,
But I am telling you you can make it to the light.
Old James Lee Jobe made it, and so can you.
Goodbye for now.

________________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Editing poems at night
Under the influence of hot chocolate.
Life opens like a flower.

—James Lee Jobe

________________________

Good morning and thank you to James Lee Jobe for his thoughtful poems today, as we inch into spring.

Today is the annual Sac. Poetry Center Spring Conference in Sacramento; I hope you’re not missing it! Then tonight, The Kings and Queens of Poetry reading will take place in Elk Grove, 7:30pm at the KAST Academy on Grant Line Rd. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa (Celebrate Poetry!)

—Anonymous Photo

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.