October

It was my father's favorite month,
tourists having evaporated. Time to
hunt a bit, when dark oak trees
detonated clouds of orange
in the evergreen Sierra mass.

October at the college,
ritual ivy going gold
to keep illusions alive &
the syllabus I sweated over
in August seeming to cruise--
as long as I, like a mechanic,
tinkered, replaced parts,
oiled students' rusting interest
with adjustments, listened
for the tell-tale whine.

October: darkness demands
more time. No bargaining allowed.
I fall in love again with sunlight,
hoping she will have me back
again, late in Spring.

hans ostrom 2022

The Rack of Seasons

What a rack of seasons
that was. In January
I fell backward into snow
and was almost buried. Noise
left the world. Someone
pulled me up and tossed
me into Summer, where I
heard a rattlesnake,
broke boulders with
a sledgehammer for minimal
wage, and drank cheap wine,

which tipped me over onto
Spring, where I caught a cold,
grew anxious, and hoarded
books, which opened up
into October, where I stacked
the last haul of firewood--
dry oak from dead trees.
Acorns pebbled the ground
and the North Wind
began to say No.



hans ostrom 2018

Certain Beverages

Hot chocolate is independent, comforting, and interesting,
like a tastefully dressed and perfumed woman
sitting at a bar who knows how to hold a conversation.

A shot or more of vodka is like a broad, iced
highway when you've just been handed
the keys to a black Corvette with failed
headlights and bald tires.

A German beer from the tap
is a highly trained, reserved professional,
absolutely dependable.

If you specify the red wine as Beaujolais,
then I will want to be of assistance
to multiple French women at once,
most likely in October, in Paris, and forgive me
if, momentarily, I confuse the situation
with paradise. As to retsina,

God help me, I did love it, as one
might love an athletic, deceptively
savvy woman from a rural province.

If you would ask me about God,
I would refer you to clean alpine creek-water.


hans ostrom 2016

"Youth Isn't Wasted on the Youth," by Hans Ostrom

Youth's not wasted on the youth. They
seem to know just what to do with it.

Autumn, which they call Fall, generates
fine light that shines on the longest
hair most college women will have in
their lives; or the shortest. College men

have more friends now than they will
later, after work, ambition, and lore
deliver betrayal and failure.

Youth is interested in itself. Sure, it's
part echo, part narcissism. But it's also
bursting with sympathy and verve.
Eyes bright, smiles broad.

Young people know they know they're young
and would laugh big to be asked to think
otherwise. Old people over-think.

They whittle dry adages, and their shirts
look weird untucked: young, you can make
that look work. Young people

don't waste any time. Or they waste
a lot of time because of that luscious
youthful languor, which I kind of recall.
Anyway, it's early October, which is a country
for old men and every kind of people. Youth
is a team to cheer for; that's all.


hans ostrom