A Moveable Meditation
It is the kind of day best taken n
inside a truck — heat on, wipers
against the windshield,
and the rain and leaves falling
in unison but not of equal parts –
maybe a hundred raindrops for
every leaf all day long so a lot fell,
long enough to make contemplation
a conclusion of the day
there inside the truck:
a kind of moveable meditation
hall, the slightest warmth
just enough to soften hard
thoughts giving them the opportunity
to leave.
The rain was cold and the air
getting colder.
The heart was warming the way it will
when given a chance.
The afternoon disappeared;
I pulled into the driveway,
glad I had turned the furnace
on a couple days before.
Stopped. The wind and rain
had stopped. Walked to the porch,
opened the door, stepped in.
“Home,” I thought as if I was saying, “OM.”
Caught
There are moments I would
visit again.
The changing nature of time says,
“I give what is not what
has been.”
I lament this fact,
cast the net for a memory
I assume full
of gaps so between then
and now I create details
to fill in.
I know how a story longs
for completeness.
I admit I’m chasing an echo,
the ghost of a touch,
a moment whose jagged
edges were smooth.
I know what time says
is true; I know what my heart
wants to do – as always
I am caught between the two.
After the Whirlwind
The echo of the whirlwind confused
the timing of when God’s voice
was heard. Get real. Those 33 questions
Job never heard out of that whirlwind
nor their response hearing in fear
the stillness now more terrifying
since it carried the whispered,
measured voice of God, the metaphors of eternal
life accessible as only desperate
hearing can receive in the afterglow
of such a storm.
The majesty and multiplicity
of life leaves no stone unturned,
no depth nor height not explored,
refusing no story — no beginning, middle,
end ignored.
Some writer who could not bear what was
being written confused the sequence to
distract the divine metaphor of facts.
We all know after a storm truth comes
in a whispered form of longing.
The Seventh Dream
The seventh dream eluded me
and in so doing the other six
were lost as I pursued what left
no sign but echo.
My hearing isn’t what it once
was and so what I thought
I had gained from the first six
was lost in pursuit of what
my grasp could not touch.
It felt so real that fantasy
was the only word I had for what
had been before it called me by name.
Now, I am in the wilderness,
my compass spinning, two moons,
two suns one in each quadrant
of the sky,
my feet above the ground, I leave
no track for my return; all water is a bridge
to the other side – I am not returning.
And I do not know if I am remembering
the echo or hearing it again
only that I’m lost with the promise
to be found.
Byron Hoot was born and raised in Morgantown, West Virginia, lived there until he went to college – a twelve-year excursion. Now he lives in northwestern Pennsylvania. . . still in Appalachia. He has recently had poems in The Watershed Journal, Tobeco Literary Arts Journal, on www.northsouthappal.com./appalachian-literature.html. and in Pennessence. He is a co-founder of The Tamarack Writers (1974) and The Fernwood Writers Retreat (2019). Proprietor of Hootnhowlpoetry.com.
