Rain On The River. Jim Dodge

pounds, and would gladly wager a new car of your choice against a soggy cornflake that it was twenty-four minimum.

      In that spirit, I trust you will understand that I offer a blessing when I wish for our coming years that a big one always gets away.

       Tao-to-Tao

      The way is

      The way it is

      Because that’s the way

      It is,

      And why.

       To Be

      ODE

      Loins and breath.

      Moonlight melting

      In the throat of a calla lily.

      Thickets of young maple

      Just breaking bud.

      All you have to be

      Is who you are,

      Naked beyond the body,

      A touch at a time.

      PALINODE

       All you have to be

       Is who you are?

      What could have I possibly

      Meant by that

      If part of you

      Is who you dream you could be

      If you weren’t the piddling little dimwit

      You actually are,

      As if the “real you”

      Is the one who sits around wondering who

      The real you is–

      Or if you’ve ever wished you were

      Someone else, anybody–

      An accountant in Coronado,

      A dishwasher in a second-rate Omaha steakhouse–

      Or if you can follow this,

      Or still care,

      You’re probably really screwed up

      Or close enough

      To be welcomed as a friend.

       Practice, Practice, Practice

      It exacts the strictest discipline

      To truly take it easy

      Yet still retain the minimal

      Quiver of ambition

      Required for consciousness.

      That’s what I’ve been working on all morning,

      Stretched out on the couch

      By the cabin window at Bob’s,

      Watching the rain,

      Without pattern,

      Fall on the pond,

      Just me and the dogs.

       Wisdom and Happiness

      The wet crescents left by the dogs’ tongues

      licking spilled cat kibble from the cabin floor;

      the strand of light, finer than spider-spun,

      unspooling from the center of my chest

      as a 20-pound steelhead slashes downstream

      through the celadon waters of the Smith;

      the gleam of water on Victoria’s flanks

      in that moment of stepping

      from the sauna into a wild Pacific storm–

      vapor-wreathed shimmer, body gone;

      the elegance of an elk track

      cut in sandy streamside silt;

      red alder bud-break in early March;

      venison stew and fresh salmon,

      garden corn coming on;

      Jason asleep on a school night,

      his bare right leg dangling from the bed

      (geez, he’s getting big);

      sliding a chunk of madrone

      into the firebox on a snowy night,

      damping the wood heater down

      for coals to kindle the morning’s fire;

      the way the terriers sneeze and leap and race

      deliriously through the orchard

      when they know we’re going on a walk;

      raindrops still cupped in huckleberry leaves

      hours after the rain has stopped:

      I made 55 years today, still hanging on,

      and though only fools lay claim to wisdom

      I don’t know what else to call it

      when every year

      it takes less to make me happy,

      and it lasts longer.

       Red Sails

      I sit at my desk

      and for no apparent reason

      start singing, badly,

       Red sails in the sunset…

      sing it until I sail out of myself,

      whatever a self is,

      crazier than shit,

      you bet,

      and deeply grateful.

       Squall & Commotion

      You’ve reached bottom

      when you understand

      there is no bottom

      to reach.

      And just rock there drenched

      on the ship’s bow,

      watching the rain

      fall on the ocean.

       Slow Learner

       Know the plants.

      –GARY SNYDER

      It’s been 50 years, most oblivious, but now,

      if only in glimpses, I can look at plants

      and feel the light composing them.

      Falling asleep, I comfort myself

      with a little prayer of their names: