Putah Creek, Davis, CA
—Anonymous Photo
—Poems by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
The monkeys will help you.
In the dream I am worried.
There is some unnamed danger
in traveling to the back of the island where I live.
Most people take primitive rowboats
because the jungle has many wild animals,
but lately the ocean is rough,
and several people have been killed either way.
I spend many days working out a way to travel
through the treetops with the help of friendly monkeys.
"The monkeys will help you!"
I go through the village streets shouting this,
and the elders welcome me with a dance.
It's not bad, this dream, as dreams go.
Lake Solano, Putah Creek
Lake Solano, Putah Creek. A ghost picnic.
Early afternoon, passing the dried cornstalks
in the fields that reached across the flat lands
to the hills drained by the green water creek.
We drive with the sun straight overhead
and Emmylou Harris sings through the speakers,
this in a car so old it creaks and groans
from the labor of driving us, both in our sixties.
We find a place to be and spread out
our picnic lunch under an old oak with bees
and blue jays investigating our food.
A beautiful day, an old husband and wife
eating and chatting in the shade near a creek.
The ghost of the son we lost is here, too,
and when the food is done, we break down
as we do everyday, everyday, everyday.
UC Davis Arboretum, Putah Creek
James, you're awful quiet.
She was quiet for a long, it seemed like years,
and I was patient, I knew I could wait her out.
Finally she said, "Every tree on earth is a grave marker
for the invisible dead. You could dig and not find a body,
but the bodies are there. They're invisible bodies."
So that was done. She looked down at her feet
and sort of dug one heel down in the dirt.
I watched her and I didn't say one word.
In fact, I never spoke again.
UC Davis Pedestrian Bridge, Putah Creek
Starry Night, August.
Look at this night sky,
I am older, I am younger,
the universe spreads out and I am alone,
untouched and cold.
What lasts forever? Even the stars die.
The universe is me and I am the universe.
Nothing can hold me down.
Nothing can touch me now.
______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
The three messages.
—James Lee Jobe
Beneath this flesh, a message flows with the blood;
be kind.
And from the heart, another message—no, it says;
be even more kind than that.
And from the head, still more—the kindness needed in this life
is almost beyond the reach of comprehension.
Three messages, now they are yours.
Go.
______________________
So many thanks to James Lee Jobe for his fine poetry on this day before Christmas Eve, 2017!
Writers on the Air will not meet today, but Poetic License read-around will meet in Placerville at the Placerville Sr. Center on Spring St., 2-4pm. 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
—Photo by Katy Brown, Davis, CA
Celebrate poetry!
Celebrate poetry!
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