Saturday, March 26, 2022

"What Survives," by Rainer Maria Rilke

Recording/video of a short poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by A. Poulin, approved for use for educational purposes, taken from allpoetry.com site. Langstonify youtube channel. 

https://youtu.be/YGlrJDLcZKQ

Thursday, March 24, 2022

The Rose Robe

(La rose robe [1864] painted by  Jean Frédéric Bazille)


the rose robe glowed,
holding its own light,
as last sunlight shone
on white buildings
down there in the town.

she sat on a broad
stone ledge, taking
a break from house
and people too self-
involved to care about
a mild breeze 
that each evening 
met her and teased trees.

she rested her long, strong
brown arms, letting hands
lie on a night-black apron.
What she thought
was no one's concern
but hers. cool air

found her neck 
and shoulders. her tired
feet in gray house 
shoes napped on stone
like two cats.

she'd sewn the pink
robe's sleeves herself
before summer settled,
knowing how they'd 
sit above her elbows
on evenings just like

this one. like her,
women down in town
longed to linger outside
stuffy rooms,
to think, and to listen to
sparrows sing 
themselves to sleep 

as stray charcoal clouds
drifted across
a chalk-blue sky. 

hans ostrom 2022

Monday, March 21, 2022

Trust and the Old Tree

You can rely on certain
people until. Until. 

An old tree knows
in its fibers that sky

giving rain and sun
might one day blast

with lightning. That
the mountain holding

soil and root-anchoring
rocks might one night

smash with a boulder-
brutal landslide or

a roaring avalanche. 
Trust is always contingent,

temporary. Is really not
to be trusted. It's the

sturdiest kind of hope.
Sway with it as it lasts. 


hans ostrom 2022

Friday, March 11, 2022

it seems you fainted

you felt yourself going,
which might describe life.
or death. a wobble & brain-light
switched off. started to crouch,

hoping to . . .
then . . . ?  you woke
slowly, with such calm,

like dawn in fog,
into a mild dream, 
a viscous stream-creek.
imagined you were

in bed--no: a table leg,
cords of some kind. so,
you got up: a fiction.

woke again.
cold ceramic under your
neck. will, a boss,
ordered you to get

up. wide-stanced, you
lurched toward a factual
bed, found it, lay down.

slept, woke to a person
telling you, "your forehead's
bleeding." you wanted
some blood to  trickle

in your mouth--a child's
thought chugging
by in awareness

like a slow catfish in 
a warm honey pond. a
chat ensued. and
old technology--

blood pressure cuff,
flashlight in eyes. fingers
on wrist to receive telegraph

message. a tuning in to your
heartbeat as if it were
espionage radio. blood
cleaned away, gauze

like a dry loveless kiss.
a diagnosis of low blood
pressure, a kind of bad

weather, and dehydration,
a kind of bad climate. water.
back to sleep, no dreams
      allowed. fainting, what a thing. 


hans ostrom 2022

Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Useless Despair

While a dictator's second-best bombs
blasted people in Kjiv, I
shopped for groceries
not far from a massive volcano
wrapped in snow like an ermine-coated
queen with a molten temper. 

Privileged beyond measure,
I gulped big  breaths of iced air,
indulged in despair, uselessly
fretted for fellow humans,
imperfect lovely people 
a half a planet away. 

How evil finds a way 
to fill little rage-addicted men
like pus until they burst
in a death riot, I can't say.

Why so many shocked children
and their parents have to die
before such a small box of rot
finally dies from his own mad
virus, I can't know. So:

I looked into a set gray sky
in some region named
the Pacific Northwest,
couldn't cry, took my sad 
bags into a store and pushed
a little wheeled cage around aisles. 


hans ostrom 2022


Monday, February 21, 2022

In Praise of Plodding

I don't sing the praises
of plodding. I mumble them.

Praise for slow striders
and taciturn toilers.

For persons who lay gray
mortar for red bricks.

Who plow fields for
food-to-be, who teach

students who arrive 
foggy from hunger or

adolescent hormones.
Who nurse the ill, who

must listen and endure in
their jobs to the squawk, squeak,

shriek of opinions. I
celebrate ones who watch

where they're going, who
produce the correct tool

at the proper time. Who follow
facts like meandering creeks

until a decisive lake comes
into view. Humanity seems

always in need of the prepared
and careful,  the appropriately shod,

citizens scrubbed of narcissism.
Thank you, plodders. Steady on.


hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Creeks

where seas start:

springs leak & snow swoons 
under sun & soon trickles
become inklings of headwaters

off spiked hills 
spasms of water splash, crash,
& make thin loud brash nervous
streams skating over slick slate.

off peaks proper creeks
leap in white waterfalls,
smash into crescendo pools,
lounge awhile,
then amble, then race & riffle
around boulders til they fall
again            listen:

there's a jazzy rhythm 
to high country creeks,
syncopation of gurgle,
trickle, rush, splash, & knock

see shadow and sun, eddies
and pebbled edges, deep
black pools, glassy sheets
under which fish shadows dart.

carved into loamy meadows
and farmland, catfish creeks
won't be rushed (hush, now),
quietly they tread over 
fine silt floors.

desert dry creeks--
ghostly impressions,
molds of pool & streambed
asking for water. lizards
scribble graffiti on 
parched sand. but then
sky attacks one day 
&  the memory of water
comes roaring back

creeks give themselves 
over to rivers that give
themselves over to bigger
flows & who knows?
maybe the big river can't
resist a coast & runs to a 
bay, to a sea, where
all the banks of rivers vanish
& all creeks sing together.


hans ostrom 2022

Monday, February 14, 2022

Far Away Sponges

Under Antarctic ice,
portly white sponges 
filter frozen secrets.

Fifteen thousand years
old, they look like huge
flabby white jars.

Like bears and us,
they are omnivorous.
Landlords of a sort,

they host crustaceans
and worms and never
charge rent or evict.

Generous, they donate
bits of themselves 
to feed sea stars.

Like soft boulders
or plump packages of time
mailed from the moon,

they fluctuate forever.
Some call all them giant 
volcano sponges, others

Anoxycalyx joubini:
mere syllables, bubbles
bursting in viscous salt

currents. It's said you can
dive down and see them. 
Please don't. A few photos

suffice, and their niche is
in no need of us. For sponges
are sisters of all other animals. 



hans ostrom

Friday, February 11, 2022

And All the Ships at Sea

Ships groan. Moan. Even shimmering
yachts know, deep in their blueprints,
they shouldn't be at sea. Commerce
and war disagree. The sea is ours!

they cry--like drunken sailors
on shore leave or rabid dictators
with shrinking brains. Ships

at permanent anchor--mothballed:
uncommanded, they slightly sway,
serene in their bay. At night, 

ghosts howl in bones of the hulls,
conjuring nightmares of reefs,
hurricanes, missiles, and mad captains. 


hans ostrom 2022

Saturday, February 5, 2022

Arguments

Gritty wind argues
with trees. New green
leaves laugh back.

A black headland
refutes a pounding sea,
which relents, then rides

again at midnight,
pale wave-tips glowing
in moonlight. We fight

with our home the planet.
If we win, we lose.


hans ostrom 2022

The Wisdom Tree

I went to find 
the Wisdom Tree.
Someone had 
chopped it down--
and all the trees
around it, down, down. 



hans ostrom 2022

Sunday, January 30, 2022

The Angel of Listening

A group's talking, many
voices interlaced,
a lattice-work of gab--

then all talk suddenly 
stops, as if timed: it's
said "an angel just passed

over," and people laugh,
and then buzzing chat
begins again, builds. Yes:

the Angel of Listening. An
angel of thought, ego retracted
like a cat's claw, minds open

like a veranda on a cottage
near a warm sea. If you can,
come by here more often, Angel.

Help us quiet down, and listen,
and let good thoughts, fresh
ideas, breeze in to mix with

our thinking, refurbish knowing. 


hans ostrom 2022

Monday, January 10, 2022

July: North Yuba River

on the North Yuba River
after wheeling mortar
& carrying rocks all day.

wading, casting a fly--
an old tippet coachman
pattern: white goose

wings, peacock feather
body, black-and-orange
tail. rainbow fly for

rainbow trout. canyon getting
blue. your work-shirt
stinks fine, same for

trout-slimed creel. 
lungs of the canyon
draw air past pines

and oaks. the current
knocks against your
legs like a baby goat.

rush of life never never

stops. here you can pause,
know sufficient peace
and privilege in your life.

plenty of fish in the creel--
maybe breakfast tomorrow.
you stay knee-deep in the flow

for the cool, for the quiet
before the day's door 
closes. now in shadow,

bugs hatch and swarm
biblically. trout leap
in jubilee. reel it in.

stick the fly in cork.
listen. riverside, open
and clean the fish, leave

guts for raccoons. climb
up and out, slipping on shale,
grunting. finally up, winded,

standing next to Highway
49's warm asphalt. no cars
now. tourists in the campground,

town people home or at 
the bar. walk in soaked
jeans and boots up to

the old battered car. 
creel in the trunk. grunt
getting in. start her up.

home in less than a mile.
July mountain air sweet
after heat of day. thanks. 


hans ostrom 2022