Crystal Creek Falls
—Poems by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
—Waterfall Photos Courtesy of James Lee Jobe
—Poems by James Lee Jobe, Davis, CA
—Waterfall Photos Courtesy of James Lee Jobe
A fine and perfect sunrise, sweet as a tangerine. I took the sun from the sky and placed it in a lovely handmade box. Rosewood. I placed the box on a shelf in my bookcase, where it awaits my next new day.
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Morning. A cool summer breeze. Hot black coffee and cold, sliced tomatoes. Cuban music playing softly in the background. I am alive, and I am conscious of what a joy it is to be alive. I don’t believe in any gods, and yet I want to thank someone. Thank you.
Burney Falls
The dharma is my rock. And this present moment? It is my flower. I love to rise early and sit in silence, long before the rising sun.
Eaton Canyon Falls
Things happen. A birth here, a death there. A crop is planted in one season, harvested and gleaned in the next. Here in the Sacramento Valley it the growing season. The crops thrive. Up in the Sierra Nevada, the mountains to the east, the snow melt fills the rivers rushing down to us in flat lands below. Things happen. I try to get them down on paper before they are dead and gone.
McArthur Burney Falls
He stood in front of me and glared, and his glance was unafraid. A lizard on a trail in the Yuba River country.
McCloud Falls
I am allergic to most dogs and cats, to a lot of trees and grasses, and I have a serious aversion to bullshit. Whatever it is, tell it to me straight and then I will go my own way, if you please. I don’t want to pet your dog, and I don’t care who you know or where you’ve been. Tell me the truth and I will do the same; simple honest humans under a gray and rainy sky.
Rainbow Falls
Eight years old, sleeping on a roll-away bed at my grandparents’ house, my father gone who knows where, I used to pray for Jesus take me in the night, pray that I would fall asleep and not wake up, not ever. But…. no Jesus, no answer. I lived a life like anyone. Some sorrow, some joy. Time passed like it does and suddenly I am an old man in my sixties. It’s too late to die young. Looking in the mirror I see Uncle Earl looking back at me. Oh well. I always liked Earl. He used to call me “Partner” with that Texas accent of his.
Yosemite Falls
Perhaps we evolved this way so that someone would be there to bury the dogs and the cats, so that someone might be available to shoot the horse that would only suffer. Life and death leave a certain amount of cleaning up that must be done, and so we have minds that reason, we have hands that can grasp a shovel or squeeze a trigger.
Help me now as I gather the wood. The fire I am building needs to be very large, and very hot.
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Today’s LittleNip:
The endless pale heavens call to me again, reminding me that I am alive and free in this moment.
—James Lee Jobe
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Thank you, James Lee Jobe, for your fine prose poems and sparkling photos, and good morning as we start the weekend! Davis will be hosting The Other Voice in Davis this coming Friday, 7:30pm, featuring Katy Brown plus open mic at the Unitarian Universalist Church library, 27074 Patwin Rd., Davis. Then on Sunday, July 21st, Davis Poet Laureate James Lee Jobe will be reading at the Davis Arts Center Poetry Series, 1919 F St., Davis, including open mic, 2-4pm. 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 as it bubbles and burbles over the rocks...
Buddha by the Waterfall
—Anonymous Photo
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