Open Your Soul to the Stars

 this one is a song lyric & my friend R.I. is working on the music--I hope!

Verses
In the space between the beats
of music, time, and heart,
lives a mystifying silence –
source of life, muse of art.

In the space between the stars
float expansive lakes of time.
In the dreams encasing dreams
stairways rise in mists of mind.

Chorus

Open your soul to the stars
dancing with creation.
Floating in that space,
ride on elation.

Open your soul to the stars—
imagination.
Sense the source of love
And adoration.

Verses

In your time within all time
and the life that moments make,
you will find your destiny
in leaps of faith you take.

In emptiness there is a cup
That holds infinity.
Time and beats and rhythm
pour from divinity.

repeat Chorus

Bridge:

Our time’s a space to explore.
Love from the universe is ours.
Find what your time here’s for.
Open your soul
Yeah, open your soul
to the stars.

repeat Chorus

hans ostrom

copyright 2024

The Dig

An archaeology student, sweating,

softly brushes soil off a long
buried shard of pottery.

Seeming to look on:
massive black boulders,
covered with simple, profound

red petroglyphs. Truly
observing: all the unseen
spirits of the canyon.

Their presence makes
the student stop to wonder why
her scalp tingles electrically.

hans ostrom 2024

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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