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The Way You Look Tonight

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon: an epic poem

Time has been scribbling for billions
of years, by our counting, which bores Time.

People from all over the globe
stand at the edge, shed nationality,
and--to a person--speak in hushed

tones, if they speak at all. Cubby
squirrels run around like ushers.
Something mystical rises

with warm air, which crows and hawks
and eagles ride casually. Time itself
is the hero of its poem, carving

granite, sandstone, quartz, limestone,
shale--each layer a chapter unspooling
in reds, roses, purples, browns, blues,

tans, and grays above the serpentine
river channel. Towers and turrets of
sandstone and limestone decorate

the rim. A single tree might spring
from a cup of soil on one of these
spires. The mind inquires, but the canyon

simply is and won't discuss geology.
Time promised the essence of earth--
stone--an epic full of love,

and Time keeps writing it,
as we gawk down and across, breathe
temporary air, take useless photographs.

hans ostrom 2024

Aunt

Forget the roller of big cigars. Here

comes the knitter of sweaters and shawls,

cook of chili rellenos and leg of lamb

and salted cod; here—

the obsessive tidier, expert gossip, 

worrier, desirer of quality in home-

appliances and carpet, lover of maple

furniture: my aunt, dead.

She never traveled far from 

Northern California—once to Mexico,

once to D.C., often to Reno to play

the slots left-handed.  Now she’s gone

as far as anyone goes.  “Toward the end,”

as they phrase it, she couldn’t talk much

but still said one phrase as clearly as

a rifle-shot: “Absolutely not.”

To God I respectfully suggest: Be ready

for this aunt and others down here

with their hand-hewn quirks, iron opinions,

loyalty, attention to detail, grudges, toughness.

You will accept them into Heaven.  They

will want to rearrange a few things.

hans ostrom 2024

Tim McGraw With Mariachi Band-Before the Next Teardrop Falls

Volver, volver - Harry Dean Stanton

She Hasn't Washed Her Hair Since Moab

 She hasn't washed her hair

since Moab. She's sick
of all her clothes, dull and drab.

Phoenix might change her luck--
you never know. Or it might cook
her brain with its unholy heat.

West is her dominion. Tacoma,
Oakland, Reno, Tonapah, Needles....
High mountains, mesas, plateaus.

Her rebuilt 1970s Ford--
it's her favorite friend, grumbling
like a big hungry lion.

She hasn't washed her hair
since Moab. She'll get that done
tonight in some damp motel.

Rest for a day in rough sheets,
get back on the road, and find
a job. Might be some form

of love in whatever town. You
never know. Or actually, you do.
That psychic in Sedona said so.

hans ostrom 2024

In No Time At All

(at Walnut Canyon, Arizona)

In a time designated September,

among short pine trees, and feeling
the high mountain heat, I look

across a deeply gashed canyon
and a thousand years--not time at all!--
to small homes people made

in gaps of limestone,
with sandstone rocks for
outer walls. Overhead,

crows, ravens, and hawks
whirl, riding the updrafts
of hot air. How quiet the Sanagua

generations must of have been.
I imagine murmurs and giggling,
sometimes overlain with shrieks

of illness or birthing cries. Little
traceries of smoke rising from
cook fires. People working to live.

I turn away from all the history
hiding in those crafted caves,
look down at a lichen-etched rock,

walk to the paved parking lot
to drive--in no time at all!--the roaring
machine back to Flagstaff and

its massive crops of housing.

hans ostrom 2024

The Word Woman

 for the memory of W.B.

She remained available to words
any day of time or night.  Sang
words if they wanted thrumming,
mumbled humbled ones, bathed
others in black ink.  Words
were people in her mind.  Without
them she couldn’t imagine the
something she’d be without them.
Come on, come in, she said when
they arrived.  She fixed a place
for each, knew most of their
morphological needs.  They
knew they might denote, connote,
obscure, shade, or just freely lie
around her home.
Toward words she truly
tried to act the perfect hostess.