Fresh Snow

. . . after a few days, the fresh snow is not so fresh.

Melting at edges where you’d think no edges should

be, the snowflakes frozen overnight lose the density

of their brightness.  Deer tracks, feral cat tracks, fox

tracks, bird tracks disturb that once pristine snowfall.

The beauty falters.  Not to mention the roads plowed

and the rock salt thrown and the gray-black grime

along the edges of the roads.  Not to mention that 

secret longing the snowfall brought when first 

falling to be covered by something as natural 

and pure as the snow, the scenes it creates

where everything seems in place and for a moment

– Life is art – is whispered.  Each season

has its moments when this whisper is heard.

Especially the seasons of the heart where at least 

once in one’s life love covers everything.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Another, Please

In nearly three hours, the temperature

has risen three degrees.  And in the last

minute, one.  The duration of cold

and the elongation of warmth in early 

fall makes me feel as if I’m in a meditation

hall of autumnal splendor, the voice

out of the whirlwind whispering.

Me smiling at the koans I can never

solve but still say, “Another, please.”

The frost melting in front of me.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Snow On the Ground

It was a fine morning to hunt.  Snowing.  

But then I thought I didn’t want to leave 

any track for God to follow me.  

I was content to stay inside,

leave no sign.  And if God wanted to track

me, my heart was crisscrossed enough

with my recognizable track to follow.

Not that I mind being tracked by God – 

I return the favor – but the beauty of the snow

on the ground and continuing to fall 

changed my dreams to later in the day,

to the time before dusk.  Who’s to say there

won’t be other sign on the ground and I 

can walk into the woods unnoticed,

hunt and meditate quietly no longer certain

if I hunt to meditate or meditate to hunt

though certain I don’t want another 

hunter close to me.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Don’t Dance by Cory Tambourine

A Painting of Peace

A painting of peace
Strokes of silence
Calm green serene
Absence of violence
Freed from struggle
A beautiful way
A painting of peace
A quiet day

-Cory Tambourine 

http://mothlightstudio.weebly.com

I Would I Could Speak

I would speak the way first 

light does in the gradual sighs of the sun’s

slow, heavy breathing as it takes its place

in the sky as if every moment is made 

to last forever in that temporal eternal 

beauty enhanced by passing time.

I would I could speak such measured beauty,

catch and be caught by well-placed light

and shadows, nuanced meanings not blasphemed

by the refusal of change, the elemental element 

of beauty and truth, life.  Maybe even the way

we nonchalantly accept the light,

to have someone say of what I’ve said, “Of course.”

-Byron Hoot

hootnhowpoetry.com

Dickens Got It Right

Christmas is a spirit-filled time of year. 

If we only dream but once a year, this

is the time of dream, of nightmare,

transformation of time by eternity.

The gifts we buy mockeries of the gift

we are to give – ourselves unwrapped,

freely given, freely to receive.  Not any

part of us left under any Christmas tree.

Giving gifts that do not satisfy is exhausting,

the clean-up afterwards weary the heart and soul.

The haunting feeling we have withheld

the best gift once again – I-am-you-you-are-me

and the music and dancing – 

“Gloria, Gloria, Gloria,” the song we love to sing.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

That Last Arrow

I am going back in memory and, therefore, time

to the first inklings of love at church camp

in Summersville, West Virginia.   Where those

sermons and songs and testimonies of love

and hell and forgiveness and salvation 

prepared my heart and body for love.

Where stolen, hidden kisses and caresses

were proof of Cupid’s arrows hitting the mark,

Venus whispering, pointing, “There.  There.”

And dreams I never knew I could have appeared.

The years of falling in and out of love,

the word “forever” echoing, the tastes of lips,

the scent of love, the touch forever new.

Days, weeks, months feeling like years.

Beginnings and endings blurred as if 

the time too fast to hold, one heart entering

another – the sheer ignorance of love.

Then the arrow that would not shake loose.

Venus saying, “That’s enough.”  Love and

life and poetry mixing, mixing, mixing

until recollection and reflection settled in.

That last arrow I still lovingly touch.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

The Question

The Question

. . . and if someone would ask,

“What do you think most of?”

I’d answer, “Time and love.”

Two facts, two magics each 

unfixed in their expression,

the nature of their forms kaleidoscopic,

their certainty confirmed

by the inability to leave either alone.

And may, I feel, contain all 

other mysteries.  I have the blessing 

and curse of solitude in which such

considerations are as certain as 

the fact that I face east every morning.

That I await the light then shadows,

that memory and desire are braided

into now, that the sickle of time 

and the bow and arrows of love

I know.  One always leaving,

one always arriving, a sigh

that sounds like OM.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Hootism:  The technology for finding who we are is hardship and love.  Everything else is child's play. 

The Last Tight Curve

I am exploring time as if I don’t 

know what it is and I don’t.

I am trying to make distances

deeper by slowing down, the instances

of curves and straightaways 

not places to get beyond but what may

be lingered in by seeing ahead, around

with a vision and heart and soul sound

with the detritus of time cast aside 

like leaves along the roads I ride

with other purposes than a way to get

me to where I’m going now a way to let

me be where I am heading in the right

direction, destination known when the last tight

curve is in the rearview 

and I know something of time I never knew.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Green In The Face by Cory Tambourine

From Artist Cory Tambourine
http://mothlightva.weebly.com