"The Red Wheelbarrow," by William Carlos Williams

"Bedtime," by Denise Levertov

Kindness

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Kindness


Is it out of fashion? Naive? Quaint?
People are nice, cool, okay, decent,
and all right. But: kind? Kindness is
small-town and small-time. I like it.
I like the hell out of it.

To be friendly for no reason other
than the person is your kind (human).
To do a good turn. To look away
at just the right moment. To notice
when noticing's needed. To provide
some assistance.  Narcissists

and bullies hate and therefore exploit
kindness like wild dogs devouring meat.
Don't spend kindness on or near them.
Don't impose kindness on anyone.
The kind move, it seems, must
be a deft move. Just enough.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

slow down

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slow down

a north carolinian i know continues
a quest to know himself & out west
i think that's good because most people
are on the same kind of path but don't
know it or won't admit it. me, i've

been running, pushing, working,
catching up, and attempting
most of my life & now have to
train myself to stop, look, think,
but mostly stop: life's not

something to solve through work
and will. if you'd know something,
then slow something down, i
tell myself, thinking of the north
carolinian in question, his schedule
spare and regular, allowing
 patient thought. slow down.
slow, i tell myself. whoever
myself is must look into that.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

One Poem, Three Readers: "Shivering Sands," by Philip Quinlan

Nic Sebastian manages the site, Whale Sound, which features, among other things, group-readings; the way they work is that three readers read (record) the same poem.  Nic kindly invited me to read Philip Quinlan's "Shivering Sands," so thanks to her for the invitation, and to the poet for the poem.  Here is a link to the three readings (the poem is not long):

"Shivering Sands"

"The Song of the Nightingale is like the Scent of Syringa," by Mina Loy

"An Upper Chamber in a Darkened House," by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

"Sonnet 52," by Samuel Daniel

"Wealth," by Langston Hughes

"Frederick Douglass 1817-1895," by Langston Hughes

A Lake

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A Lake

A lake's a lovely dot
that should have ought
to have been if it weren't.
Lakeside, see the burnt
place inside stones:
campfire. The many zones
of any sort of lake
amaze: here fish wake,
there sleep. Shelves, shallows,
a glass surface where swallows,
evenings, select sweet bugs
to eat. Cool shade for slugs.
Shadows, where the muck
rules. A cove where a duck
feels safe and mutters.
Trees behave like shutters,
filtering light, allowing moss.
Humans can't help but toss
junk into lakes. I don't know why.
In the lake, see the sky.
Sit by the lake. My Lord, the sounds.
Even in small lakes life abounds,
from single-cell and bug to frog
to worms beneath a sunken log.
Fish jump, cruise, dive, and school.
Patient lakeside raccoons drool.
Kingfisher and eagle do espy,
and hawk with an awful eye
perceives a chipmunk by the lake.
(Back up that tree, for heaven's sake.)
A blue acceptance, is a lake,
made of snow or stream or spring,
a lovely, yes, a functional thing.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom

"Sunbeam," by Anna Akhmatova

Light on the Hill

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Light on the Hill


Today I passed "The Church of
the Light on the Hill."  It was situated
in a damp hollow. "God bless," I said
silently. Later, the accountant said,
"--Provided our assumptions are correct."
I thought, "Indeed."

And they never are; or seldom.
Faith and accounting are of
the same species: hope--
a light upon a mental hill,
a light we look at from a hollow
near the river of our circumstances.


Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom