River Run Dry

 thinking of Ann Monroe

Though we may not know it then,
some goodbyes are forever. She
cried in the cafe--cold-rain Spring
day. We went to her place and made
love just one more time. Her black hair.

We drifted like untied rowboats
in a harbor. One hot Summer day,
we met to say goodbye. Decades
rolled by like freight trains, clack-clack,
on the time track. I see her

face on that goodbye day. When
both of us thought in frames of hours,
days, weeks, months. I don't recall
precisely what we said besides, "Okay,
see you later. Bye." I know neither
of us thought forever. And those decades

later, after no contact, I heard she
died. I felt like I stood on a cliff,
looking down, down, into a deep
canyon in which a river had run dry.
I wrote a note on one of those
obituary sites online. It felt like
scribbling with charcoal
on a canyon wall no one would see.

Hans Ostrom 2024

Parsonage

 Is the Self

an apparition

barely in view,

then gone, like a last

bit of mist leaving trees,

pushed by a breeze?

Is it a certainty

like a boulder that shapes

the flow of a small

creek singing, bells

in the distance ringing?

Does it simply 

seem to be,

out of necessity?

Perhaps the self's

a symbolic personage,

like a mossy-bricked

parsonage in an old village:

It stands, orienting

the town around itself,

a landmark, but not the core

of the town, nor the whole

village, no certainly

not the whole.

Hans Ostrom 2024

2024 Book & Media Awards Ceremony

The Dreaming Mind Versus You

A squat building, five floors

tops, with a flat roof. This structure

features in recent dreams. One dream:

you live on the roof in a truck with a camper.

Another: You watch commuters

in cars compete to use an exterior

off-ramp to get off the roof.

They rage and roar as you

stand in the maelstrom. In another,

you perch alone on the roof

and stare at big leafy trees

and know you're stranded. Beyond

the trees a campus may lie--

you can't know.

The dreaming mind is mulish. It

conjures what it will and does not

serve you. You serve it. Sleeping,

you can't leave the theater 

or even close your interior eyes.

Which is only fair, as your ridiculous will

pushes your mind all day and into

night, often not wisely. On that

flat roof of a nondescript, unglamorous

building, you feel a useless,

barren loneliness. Get used to it. 

Says the dreaming mind. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

Bing Crosby - Send In The Clowns (Parkinson, August 30th 1975)

Cat's Eyes Revery

I left sleep's velvet shack,

walked across a field of dew-

doused feathers, arrived

at two identical round ponds,

both glowing pale green

like a cat's eyes. I

then picked up a couple spongy 

pale yellow orbs, palm-sized,

tossed one into one pond,

the other into the other.

They floated to the centers

of the ponds and turned dark.

The nearby forest, black

in shadow, purred loudly,

vibrating my ribs, cranium,

and feet. At my back came

a cold rough breeze. 

hans ostrom 2024

Sierra Ferrell – Fox Hunt

NAZI TOWN, USA | Chapter 1 | American Experience | PBS

"That's the Day I'll Forget About You"

Great Horned Owls Perch Together and Have a Conversation 01.07.2024 (exp...

Alpine Lake

Sometimes the lake takes sunlight,

turns it into a deep blue

that might make you leave your mouth

open slightly like a child

just awake from a nap.

On some leaden summer days,

the lake quits moving, stays

so still it turns frog green.

Sluggish fish nap. Anglers

take their tackle-boxes home.

Giant bugs come and dance

on the water. At night?

At night the lake puts its colors

in an old drawer. It hums tunes

and talks to raccoons and owls

and hiding water fowls.

In Winter the lake turns white

with ice and snow--becomes

stationery from 1925 on which

you scribble pleas to Spring. 

Hans Ostrom 2024

Doctor My Eyes | Jackson Browne | Song Around The World | Playing For Ch...

You Hold the Door

You sometimes think, What

does any of this have to do with me?
Everything, of course. You and the
8 billion breathe the same air,
recycled from the air early Africans
breathed before the land
got named Africa. The children

bombs, bullets, and missiles kill
for not one single good goddamned reason
raise your ire, eve if you ire's impotent.

The woman earning her wage
at the cafe knows your name,
and you know hers, and you two
sometimes speak of San Francisco.

At any moment, someone you have
never met may need your help,
and you theirs. Still, a person

knows that others plan the future--
often by refusing to plan, often
with sinister, even evil, habits in play.
No way the future belongs to you.
You ask no one, To whom does it

belong?" You take a last gulp
of coffee bean syrup and watch
the woman pull the wool hat
over her ears and go outside
to smoke a cigarette, check
her phone, and be alone. On
the way out, you hold a door
for a stranger. He says, "Thanks,'
and you say, "You're welcome."

Hans Ostrom 2024