Almost Faith

Good Lord and my word,

Existence seems absurd.

Still, if you insist
I’d guess that God exists—

But that—that’s just a guess.
And meanwhile: what a mess.

hans ostrom 2024

John Julius Norwich - The less than pleasant Evelyn Waugh (133/136)

Last Train To Clarksville Jeff Daniels Ben Daniels Band City Winery NYC ...

The Kalin Twins - When (1959)

Two Astrophysicists Debate Free Will

Last Class

All but one of the twenty students
have left, and now she hands me
her exam. I say thanks,
she says goodbye, I add
"Have a good summer" & she flashes a smile.
She goes, the door closes

on a career (whatever that
is) of teaching college students.

I gather the exams & walk
out of the dreary, pale yellow
classroom, take the stairs
a flight up to my office, sit down,
and take a breath. I've always
.
been awful at alleged Big
Moments, wanting to see them
as just another leaf or twig
floating on Time's stream.

I taught for forty years,
made a living. A crow
visits the ledge outside
my office window. I suspect
crows know everything.

Now I'll go home and cook
dinner for my wife, watch a TV
crime show (British, no doubt),
then go to bed and read. And
read: what led me to this
teaching biz-ness in the first place.
To read, to write, to teach, to care,
breathing that special college air.

hans ostrom 2024

I taught at the University of Puget Sound

for 37 years, also in Sweden & Germany,

and at U.C. Davis

Lewis Black Talks Dr.Phil (Stark Raving Black)

BONNARD, PIERRE & MARTHE - Official HD Trailer (2024) - Only In Cinemas

Kind of Blue

 ("Kind of Blue," Miles Davis album, 1959)

kind of blue, sweetly

  sad, tart despair.

kind of blue, like

  you, when you don't

know what to do or

  how to stop or slow

the world's deluge

  of evil but must step

around deep inert

  blue to finish chores,

open doors, lend a

  hand. kind of blue--

like a lonely, thoughtful

  trumpet blown

by a man deep 

  inside the music--

a spirit inside

 an ear-shaped cave.

hans ostrom 2024

6 ways to heal trauma without medication | Bessel van der Kolk | Big Think

The Woman in the Pasture

Roaming one of your thought

neighborhoods, you hear a coin

hit a hard floor, listen as it

oscillates its way into settling flat.

You drift into a vast hall

where a shaft of sunlight

pings off the silvery coin:

you go over, lean, and look.

Symbols on it perplex.

Now a horse snorts, 

and the hall becomes a pasture

& the coin becomes

a pendant nestled

in the cleavage of a woman's

brown breasts. "So that belongs

to you, then?" you ask. "No,

but you do," says she.

hans ostrom 2024

The Third Bardo - I'm Five Years Ahead of My Time

Zen Weeding

At last I attacked

a rude section of weeds

in the veg garden. I dug,

pulled, yanked, ripped,

shook, and tossed plants

with white ganglia roots.

I sweat, took off my jacket, 

got chilled, put it back on.

A rain squall came. I told

myself to stay in the weeding

moment. Zen weeder. I couldn't.

My mind hopped around

like water drops on a hot

griddle. But trying to stay

in the moment kept me

weeding, at least. Half-

zenned, half the weeds gone,

drenched, I scurried inside. 

hans ostrom 2024