Leaving and Arriving

 I am leaving in the dream and I 

don’t know where I’m leaving 

from or going to when I hear,

“Here and now to here and now”

as if that means anything.

Think of pictures I have taken 

of landscapes and know there

is no possibility of repeating them – 

everything from where I’d stand,

what I’d see, the frame of time

that no second, minute, hour

can hold exactly would be different.

And so would I, repeat, “Here and now

to here and now” look outside, look

in, get that wry smile my dad would sometimes

get when he preached speaking for God.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Snorkel by Cory Tambourine

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

Nearing Seventy-one

I am arriving where I can say, “I see

some sense to my life.”  The past 

making sense in ways that only

time reveals.  The vision a reward,

the reward unabashed in what it gives.

The sense of right and wrong the trail

of a snake leading out through  

some eastern gate of a paradise that 

doesn’t exist.  A tolerance I would not 

have given myself ten years ago.

 

I am ambiguous about the word “regret.”

I’ve had a few utterly true and useful.

I know how moments were fulcrums

opening and closing doors I could not,

like Psyche needing help to overcome 

the tasks Aphrodite had given her.

 

Now, I see my mis-interpretations,

see now what I was blind to,

no longer hearing “this is this and

that is that” that echo forming a harmony.

Something like forgiveness enters,

some alchemical transformation 

changing ignorance into knowledge,

the promise of the beginning of wisdom – 

possibly next year – when I turn seventy-two.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

hootism:  freedom without responsibility is anarchy.

Escape

I drove through the Laurel Highlands

yesterday and was tempted like

Rip Van Wrinkle to go into the mountains

and not come out.  To let time pass 

on some road beyond the mountains,

to not see change but in the cycle

of seasons the words linear and time

untranslatable in valleys and streams,

fog lingering in hollows, caught 

by the tops of trees.  But I was on 

a road taking me to where I live,

where stories have built a home,

a place of refuge, a place to go to,

a place to see my children

pulling into the driveway.  The mountains

receding in the rear view mirror.  

Home only forty miles away.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

One of Those Days

The lake was calm and the blue sky

and slight breeze created a time 

of perfection where everything fits

together and we fished missing strikes,

catching one or two, releasing them.

And we fished as if there was nothing 

else to do.  And there wasn’t, that grace 

of being present slow and easy, deep and wide.  

Later, we left not because we had to but there

were back roads to drive, deer and turkey to watch for. 

Pulled into the driveway, sat on the porch, had a beer, 

listened to the birds, talked in-between the silence of words.

“Think this could be paradise?” I asked.

“Could be, Dad,” he said and smiled.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Cosmic Villains

It is not clear who the villain

is in the story of The Fall.

Is it God wanting things to remain

as they are?  Is it the Serpent who

knows too much of a good thing 

is no good at all?  Those afraid 

to accuse the cosmically divine 

point the finger to Adam and Eve.

They were, as the saying would 

come to be said, between a rock

and a hard place.  And who’s to know

if those other two did not say to each

other, “Betcha!” and waited for two

truths to collide.  The fact that we are 

drawn to a paradise that lacks freedom 

and a freedom that lacks paradise cannot be denied –

the evidence called history describes.

And who among us has not heard,

“Walk with me” and “Eat of the tree”?

And know the echoes of our answers.

-Byron Hoot

 hootnhowlpoetry.com

Seamless

The containers I put my experiences 

in are rotting.  The condensation 

of blood and tears have blurred 

all demarcations and the words 

beginning, middle, and end have 

no meaning.  The artificiality 

of separation has left and the intensity 

of meaning is moving through me

like The Sword of Solomon as the truth 

of lies reveals and reveals and reveals.

I show my wounds to myself 

and say, “I believe.”   Whisper,“So this is how

it feels to wear a seamless robe.”  Bow slightly

at the reflection in the mirror.

-Byron Hoot

http://hootnhowlpoetry.com/

The Calculus of Now

In the calculus of now, nothing can 

be learned, no process to create       

a model of some A plus some B

or some A minus some B equaling 

a definite C.  Taught the way poems

and plays and stories teach that impeccable 

cosmic logic beyond the realms 

of logic though with the certainty 

of conclusions.  Who can say how now,

with its delightful, insidious results 

comes to be?  Not me.  I can say,  “This

is this and that is that” but know nothing 

of how I am in this moment, know there

is no way I could have predicted

the certainty that is occurring.                             

Not that I believe in some divine plan,

but I do believe in some divine mystery

that keeps seducing me into here

and now and the next moment to follow.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

Exposed

I cannot read certain authors

without feeling ashamed.

As if all my flaws are exposed.

 

The gift of writing 

is the double-entendre:

what is said,

what is meant,

the layered lexicography 

of experience,

the masterful placement 

of what fits.

 

I keep reading – pissed, pleased, perplexed.

 

Not to hear the echoes of words,

not to follow the Ariadne thread –

blasphemy.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

North of Dawn

The cloud to the north of the sun

is a color no name can name.

 

I refrain from the blasphemy 

of trying but not the praise

 

I feel in being in the presence

of the unnamable before my eyes,

 

within my heart like a prayer 

enticing me to dance what 

 

is beyond the realm of words

but not experience.   My love

 

for words is only equaled by my

distrust of them to capture what

 

may not be caught like the color 

of that cloud just north of the sunrise.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com

The Janitor

The Janitor

     “a caretaker of a building”

I never cleaned a church.  There was

always a janitor, some parishioner

who took care of that, cut the grass,

shoveled snow.  They seemed to work 

as a team, my father and the janitor.

Dad would spend his time searching 

scripture for the next sermon, counselling 

broken hearts, visiting the sick, praying.

Weddings, funerals.  And the janitor 

would come in midweek. Begin in the Sunday 

school rooms dusting, sweeping, wiping

down, picking up.  Notes written hastily.

A quarter, a dollar discarded he’d put in his

pocket to put in an envelope then put the money

in the offering.  “The forgotten offering,” he’d

say, laugh.  Then move into the sanctuary where

discarded dreams sat in pews, distracted thoughts

lingered, prayers said never intended to go higher

than the ceiling.  Week after week he’d clean.

And on Sunday morning, third pew back on the left

hand side from the pulpit, he and his family would sit. 

Dad would enter the platform from a side door, glance 

first to Randolph and nod,smile slightly as if saying, “Good job.”  

The congregation left behind what they wanted to and what

they didn’t know they left Dad and Randolph picked up.

-Byron Hoot

https://hootnhowlpoetry.com