Jnana Hodson

Shroud

What garb will you put on
when dying? Rifle all you
want through that closet.

The finality you fear uttering
hovers, all the same. Even
if you slip into dragonfly wings

as a buzz or a shriek brings
the summons you must draw on
a lifetime of appropriate practice.

Only righteous threads
befit anyone
ushered through that doorway.

 

September: Death Feeds Life

Spiraling greenbacks grated
across an agitated colonial boneyard

in premature outbursts.
I debated crossing the pliable skin

of superpatriot Mary Sunshine.
About to be buried

who whistles upon the choppers
of a startled bass viol?

Tidal flats surrounded a demure
mouthful of orthodontic jinxes

laboring under false expectations.
“I doe take to my sselfe the land where on

the Stone howse Standeth with one Rod in bredth,
from the uper End of the stone howse,

on both sids the howse and land above said,
is given and apointed for frinds in the minestrey . . .

I say for there use that thay may be Entertained therein,
in all times to Come Even for Ever.”

We supported another town’s spaghetti supper
while a hurricane skirted the coastline.

Twilight chill invited wide-eyed clarity
or a veiling fog. Take your pick.

Did you hear thumping
in the orange and red fringes

                   of green forest?
Some habits play out better than others.

 

Elijah in Late Winter

Raven punctuates
frigid water
purling from caverns

wisps of stratus breathe
from abandoned mine shafts
etched in mallard down

even now, prophets flee
to black pools
gurgling into ice shelves

the riddled snowpack
anticipates
elliptical circuits

bear and moose tracks
cross silence and slaughter
with inescapable trepidation

in the hush, beaver
glide into gumbo lodges
where would I go

soon as back roads
admit the muddy
fugitive taste of smoke

wafts from timber-framed
chambers where small cakes
are frosted by young mothers

look about the solitude
of a melting afternoon
far from the temple

papery birch oscillate
with dank bark endirons
and the test invoking fire

Jnana Hodson’s recently published novel, Ashram: Adventures on a Yoga Farm, focuses on a single spring day and eight resident students who have moved to a small reclaimed farm in the mountains. With a boisterous and unorthodox American woman as their swami, their quest for divine truth in a back-to-the-earth setting lifestyle is full of turmoil, comedy, discoveries, and growth. The book is available as a PDF download at PulpBits.

Copyright © 2006 by Jnana Hodson. All rights reserved.

This page published March 2006.

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