"Small Poem for April"

This small poem honors

smooth blue pebbles,

waking up to a local

bird chorus each day,

the price of pollen

(sneeze-blasts), stalwart friends,

more and more and more light,

fair wages, and rest.

hans ostrom 

2018/revised 2022

"What Survives," by Rainer Maria Rilke

Recording/video of a short poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, approved for use for educational purposes, taken from allpoetry.com site. Langstonify youtube channel. 

https://youtu.be/YGlrJDLcZKQ

The Rose Robe

(La rose robe [1864] painted by  Jean Frédéric Bazille)

the rose robe glowed,

holding its own light,

as last sunlight shone

on white buildings

down there in the town.

she sat on a broad

stone ledge, taking

a break from house

and people too self-

involved to care about

a mild breeze 

that each evening 

met her and teased trees.

she rested her long, strong

brown arms, letting hands

lie on a night-black apron.

What she thought

was no one's concern

but hers. cool air

found her neck 

and shoulders. her tired

feet in gray house 

shoes napped on stone

like two cats.

she'd sewn the pink

robe's sleeves herself

before summer settled,

knowing how they'd 

sit above her elbows

on evenings just like

this one. like her,

women down in town

longed to linger outside

stuffy rooms,

to think, and to listen to

sparrows sing 

themselves to sleep 

as stray charcoal clouds

drifted across

a chalk-blue sky. 

hans ostrom 2022

Trust and the Old Tree

You can rely on certain

people until. Until. 

An old tree knows

in its fibers that sky

giving rain and sun

might one day blast

with lightning. That

the mountain holding

soil and root-anchoring

rocks might one night

smash with a boulder-

brutal landslide or

a roaring avalanche. 

Trust is always contingent,

temporary. Is really not

to be trusted. It's the

sturdiest kind of hope.

Sway with it as it lasts. 

hans ostrom 2022

it seems you fainted

you felt yourself going,

which might describe life.

or death. a wobble & brain-light

switched off. started to crouch,

hoping to . . .

then . . . ?  you woke

slowly, with such calm,

like dawn in fog,

into a mild dream, 

a viscous stream-creek.

imagined you were

in bed--no: a table leg,

cords of some kind. so,

you got up: a fiction.

woke again.

cold ceramic under your

neck. will, a boss,

ordered you to get

up. wide-stanced, you

lurched toward a factual

bed, found it, lay down.

slept, woke to a person

telling you, "your forehead's

bleeding." you wanted

some blood to  trickle

in your mouth--a child's

thought chugging

by in awareness

like a slow catfish in 

a warm honey pond. a

chat ensued. and

old technology--

blood pressure cuff,

flashlight in eyes. fingers

on wrist to receive telegraph

message. a tuning in to your

heartbeat as if it were

espionage radio. blood

cleaned away, gauze

like a dry loveless kiss.

a diagnosis of low blood

pressure, a kind of bad

weather, and dehydration,

a kind of bad climate. water.

back to sleep, no dreams

      allowed. fainting, what a thing. 

hans ostrom 2022

Useless Despair

While a dictator's second-best bombs

blasted people in Kjiv, I

shopped for groceries

not far from a massive volcano

wrapped in snow like an ermine-coated

queen with a molten temper. 

Privileged beyond measure,

I gulped big  breaths of iced air,

indulged in despair, uselessly

fretted for fellow humans,

imperfect lovely people 

a half a planet away. 

How evil finds a way 

to fill little rage-addicted men

like pus until they burst

in a death riot, I can't say.

Why so many shocked children

and their parents have to die

before such a small box of rot

finally dies from his own mad

virus, I can't know. So:

I looked into a set gray sky

in some region named

the Pacific Northwest,

couldn't cry, took my sad 

bags into a store and pushed

a little wheeled cage around aisles. 

hans ostrom 2022