In the Beginning

 In the beginning was,

Well, the start. In the start

Was the word. Or the light,

Lux, fiated. Fated? Was

The universe fated to be

And/or not to be? In the 

First place was no place,

Less than a speck, a tiny

Spec-piece of  this period. No,

Really. Out of that

Micro-dot came All.

In that beginning was a Boom-

Bang-Big-Thang. In

The beginning was the end,

A reeling in, an eternal return,

An 8 lying on its side. 

In a human baby’s beginning

Is a grammar, a formal loam

Already ready for sounds,

Signs, words, phrases, phases

Of versation. Hear the toddler

Form past present future,

Possess the prepositions,

Put syntax in the right position. 

All right, light, let it be, let it

Go on, shine forth. In the Begin,

Let's lean in, watch our words,

Listen here, hear, listen:

We're caught in brute matter

And magic, always beginning. 

hans ostrom 2024

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Chores

I am what I do, and I

do what I can, so I'm
what I can do,
which now is watching pale
rose light, dusk, after some
day we had. I used to be
cutting grass, mopping
floors, washing clothes. That
was a long moment ago
when things were so what then,
the grass and mops
and suds a long example.

I bow my head, evening,
acknowledge tasks, which
add up to me,
a who whose having done
is such as he's to be.

hans ostrom 2024

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

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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

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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

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