Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Monday, September 23, 2024
Sunday, September 22, 2024
Thursday, September 19, 2024
Wednesday, September 18, 2024
The Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon: an epic poem
Time has been scribbling for billionsof 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
Tuesday, September 17, 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
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