Tense Ambiguity

I read the bible every day.
No one knows if I’ve been bad or
If I’m still okay.

I read stories; up too late.
I don’t know if my hero
Is here; on the way.

I read poetry, stuff like that.
Will this be my song of hope
Or my epitaph?

I read your letters through the night.
There’s something to be said for
Ambiguity.

Drive On

You are not invisible.
I saw you put your hand out for my love.
It’s not as though I can’t see the sign
That tells me you are miserable.
But now the light is changing;
As much as we might need each other
I’m going to take my foot off the brake
And drive on.

There's a necklace on my mirror.
It's been there since you left.
A pretty thing someone should wear,
Because every time I see it-
Every time I look up there -
I'm leaving a child behind.

I’m sorry for holding back
All that is due one who has gone to hell
For me and back, but it’s about time
For me to get moving, time to get back
To what I’m always doing;
Although I know you called me Brother
I’m going to turn my head the other way
And drive on.

There's a necklace on my mirror.
It's been there since you left.
Adornment some soul should wear,
Because every time I see it-
Every time I look up there -
I'm leaving my life behind.

_______________

My son, do not lose sight of these—
keep sound wisdom and discretion,
and they will be life for your soul
and adornment for your neck.

(Proverbs 3:21-22 ESV)

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due,
when it is in your power to do it.

Do not say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again,
tomorrow I will give it”—when you have it with you.

(Proverbs 3:27-28 ESV)

- For our Jordan in Beirut

Olive Mounds

With age and imagination, brown-olive mounds could be wild rabbits
 frozen by the hawk
 that hunts this shallow creek.
With wisdom and meditation, long ears evolve into short branches
 driven from the oak
 in last night’s thunderstorm.
But with coffee, patience, and motion, they resolve into fox squirrels
 startled by the sight
 of man at his window.

______________________
For our little Olives and Olivers

As the Lord Had Commanded

Coats, woven
 of fine linen,
For the priest and his sons;
Caps, turban
  of fine linen,
Beneath, fine
 twined linen,
Sash of fine
  twined linen,
Blue, purple, and
 scarlet yarns;
Needlework embroidery - all
As the Lord had commanded

And love, love
 One another;
All love, love,
 As I love you;
As the Lord has
 Commanded,
Love, love, love
 One another

___________
Exodus 39:27-29 ESV
John 15:12
With spanish guitar

The Trail to Salt Creek

In my grief

            The trail to Salt Creek

            Is guarded by prickly-pear

            And jumping cactus.

I can’t go back.

            I have forgotten

            How to slide down the shale ridge

            To our fishing spot.

How can I find joy?

            I cannot sneak past

            The purple sage on the ledge

            Where rattlesnakes thaw.

I am afraid.

I am afraid.

I can’t go back.

In my grief,

How can I find joy?

I can’t go back.

How can I find joy?

In my grief, I am afraid.

I am afraid; how can I find joy?

I am afraid - in my grief.

I can’t go back - in my grief.

How can I find joy in my grief?

In my grief -

In my grief -

I am afraid.

Afraid - can’t go back, go back.

Find joy - in my grief – find joy?

Go back.

Hokes Post

Your post reminds me, I once hired a grizzled old feller in the Alaskan bush named "Hokes Post"  to ferry me across the bay in his seal-skin umiak.

I had just stepped in when he handed me a rawhide-bandaged old paddle and said, "Here, you take 'Orion' and I'll take 'Explorer' and we'll chew the fat a bit while we work our way across."

He looked Inuit, but he spoke the local dialect with a bit of a drawl and a hint of Texas-like twang. Hokes really liked to talk (also unlike most of the folks around there), but when questioned about that Hoax swore he had lived in the Alaskan wild since the day he was born. Over the course of our two-hour struggle with the surface chop and shifting tidal currents, Post told me a fantastic story that his mother had told him many times about how Hokes' dad had fallen in live with her. The story was that he fell for her after she bravely rescued him out of the belly of a giant bird that had been caught in the teeth of the Great White Lake.  This mythical bird was so big that the White Lake could not digest it all at once, but would take a bite, chew on it when the nights were still long, swallow what it could, then run to the sea and back again with the summer salmon - and just as ravenous. I didn't believe him, of course, but Hokes did spin a nice yarn.

I remember that as we approached the far shore - me, totally exhausted from constant paddling, and Hokes not at all, even with the constant legend telling -  I could see two huge mastiff-like dogs watching intently but quietly from a small berm just above the graveled bank clearing that I assumed would be our eventual landing point. Hokes warned me, "Don't worry about Will and Wiley. They know better than to come down here and bother my customers...unless you got some bacon in your pack. In which case you are own your own and may God have mercy on your soul."

Standard Time

Standard Time, Standard Time
Ev’rybody’s loves the Standard Time
The ground’s still lit and the moon don’t shine
We’s a-goin’ on with Standard Time.

He went off of Standard Time
Didn’t wake up ‘till half-past nine
Lost his job though the clock ran fine
Better get on back to Standard Time

Savings Time around the bend
It comes to the door, don’t let it in
Cost your job and your never gonna win
What do you think of that, my frien’?

Me and my gal, my gal’s son
We got caught in a traffic jam
I don’t even know why we come
Goin’ back when we came from

Standard Time in the afternoon
Ev’rybody singin’ a sorrowful tune
An hour delay -  a socialist boon
Somebody better get rid of it soon.

Standard Time, Standard Time
Ev’rybody’s loves the Standard Time
The ground’s still lit and the moon don’t shine
We’s a-goin’ on with Standard Time.

____________________
Sung to “Oxford Town”
Apologies to Bob Dylan and serious-minded people