The Silent Morning

Your Poet, with Coffee

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

The internal clock of the land ticks until the hands click onto ‘summer.’ And so it is that an alarm goes off and summer awakes with a yawn. The fields become rich with crops and the towns seem full of people in short pants, smelling of sunscreen. Sweating isn’t quite a hobby, but almost. Perhaps you have noticed that as you age time seems to pass ever faster. It’s true, and we can’t change that. So relax, autumn is but moments away.

The colors of my rain are silver and blue, and the sound is music, an etude for piano or cello, one note per raindrop. Sixty-two years old and still these poems command my life. A rainy night. A cup of tea. My notebook.

 North Davis Pond

My wife is deeply asleep and, watching her, I imagine a rose growing in mid-air above her head, living its own life from birth until death, and as this lovely flower passes it drops its petals one by one in a circle around my love. Oh, what a beautiful thing it is to be alive and deeply in love.

___________________

Closing up the old house against the harshness of the world, and my old beliefs have been stripped away from me. All that is left is just my bare self, as I am. And for beliefs? I'll believe in my own emptiness. I'll believe in the silent morning, and starting with that, I will go on.

Davis Bus

This life is light, and light is this life. It is the light of being placed inside the simple frame of a body, moving across the skull of the world, across the pieces of time that help to define us. And what's left beyond that? Our choices, friend. And our choices define us, too.

 Davis, California

 

To the west there is a slice of moon. Just a slice. It was a hot day, for the first time since dawn the air feels slightly cool. I am an old man standing in my driveway to look up at the evening sky, but I am complete. I know peace.

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Today’s LittleNip:

May this world be cleansed, and remain so for as long as it exists. May we be cleansed, and remain so for as long as we exist.

—James Lee Jobe

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Thank you, James Lee Jobe, for your lovely prose poems today! Check into James’ blog at james-lee-jobe.blogspot.com/.

This Sunday from 2-4pm, James will host the Davis Arts Center Poetry Series, this month featuring Bethanie Humphreys and Heather Judy plus open mic. That’s at 1919 F St., Davis.

Then, next Friday at 7:30pm, James will host The Other Voice in Davis, featuring Rhony Bhopla and Tamer Sa'id Mostafa plus open mic. That’s in the Unitarian Universalist Church library, 27074 Patwin Rd., Davis.

Today is Sac. Poetry Center’s 40th Anniversary Fall Poetry Festival, starting at 2pm with readings, food and other surprises at 25th & R Sts., Sacramento. Also today, there will be a presentation on Akinto: Day Making by Kristin George Bagdanov and Pecos Pryor, about poetry and the art of accumulation That's at Pachamama Coffee on 20th St. in Sacramento, 5-7pm. The day will include participant creations using the methods described by the artists. 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, celebrating poetry which commands our lives

 "…a slice of moon. Just a slice..."
—Anonymous Photo of Moon Slice (and Venus)

  

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