In Praise of Plodding

I don't sing the praises

of plodding. I mumble them.

Praise for slow striders

and taciturn toilers.

For persons who lay gray

mortar for red bricks.

Who plow fields for

food-to-be, who teach

students who arrive 

foggy from hunger or

adolescent hormones.

Who nurse the ill, who

must listen and endure in

their jobs to the squawk, squeak,

shriek of opinions. I

celebrate ones who watch

where they're going, who

produce the correct tool

at the proper time. Who follow

facts like meandering creeks

until a decisive lake comes

into view. Humanity seems

always in need of the prepared

and careful,  the appropriately shod,

citizens scrubbed of narcissism.

Thank you, plodders. Steady on.

hans ostrom 2022

Creeks

where seas start:

springs leak & snow swoons 

under sun & soon trickles

become inklings of headwaters

off spiked hills 

spasms of water splash, crash,

& make thin loud brash nervous

streams skating over slick slate.

off peaks proper creeks

leap in white waterfalls,

smash into crescendo pools,

lounge awhile,

then amble, then race & riffle

around boulders til they fall

again            listen:

there's a jazzy rhythm 

to high country creeks,

syncopation of gurgle,

trickle, rush, splash, & knock

see shadow and sun, eddies

and pebbled edges, deep

black pools, glassy sheets

under which fish shadows dart.

carved into loamy meadows

and farmland, catfish creeks

won't be rushed (hush, now),

quietly they tread over 

fine silt floors.

desert dry creeks--

ghostly impressions,

molds of pool & streambed

asking for water. lizards

scribble graffiti on 

parched sand. but then

sky attacks one day 

&  the memory of water

comes roaring back

creeks give themselves 

over to rivers that give

themselves over to bigger

flows & who knows?

maybe the big river can't

resist a coast & runs to a 

bay, to a sea, where

all the banks of rivers vanish

& all creeks sing together.

hans ostrom 2022

Far Away Sponges

Under Antarctic ice,

portly white sponges 

filter frozen secrets.

Fifteen thousand years

old, they look like huge

flabby white jars.

Like bears and us,

they are omnivorous.

Landlords of a sort,

they host crustaceans

and worms and never

charge rent or evict.

Generous, they donate

bits of themselves 

to feed sea stars.

Like soft boulders

or plump packages of time

mailed from the moon,

they fluctuate forever.

Some call all them giant 

volcano sponges, others

Anoxycalyx joubini:

mere syllables, bubbles

bursting in viscous salt

currents. It's said you can

dive down and see them. 

Please don't. A few photos

suffice, and their niche is

in no need of us. For sponges

are sisters of all other animals. 

hans ostrom

And All the Ships at Sea

Ships groan. Moan. Even shimmering

yachts know, deep in their blueprints,

they shouldn't be at sea. Commerce

and war disagree. The sea is ours!

they cry--like drunken sailors

on shore leave or rabid dictators

with shrinking brains. Ships

at permanent anchor--mothballed:

uncommanded, they slightly sway,

serene in their bay. At night, 

ghosts howl in bones of the hulls,

conjuring nightmares of reefs,

hurricanes, missiles, and mad captains. 

hans ostrom 2022

Arguments

Gritty wind argues

with trees. New green

leaves laugh back.

A black headland
refutes a pounding sea,
which relents, then rides

again at midnight,
pale wave-tips glowing
in moonlight. We fight

with our home the planet.
If we win, we lose.

hans ostrom 2022

The Wisdom Tree

I went to find 

the Wisdom Tree.

Someone had 

chopped it down--

and all the trees

around it, down, down. 

hans ostrom 2022