john robert (haj) ross

Hj, Roslia, and Nicholas

Thank you for the love
for tulips in circles
and many worn colors
of fishermens boats,
keel up, high on the beach
for tails wagging in greeting
and the craft of the printer
for the spider and patience
for your eyes of forgiveness
the winter is over
the redness of sunset
last light on dark clouds
I give thanks for this chance
for the bad, for the good
for the tries for the failings
the hatred and torture
the smile of the sadist
all parts of the song
I must find my voice in

I bow to the ground, kiss the grass,
my face in the dust
Let me hear jays and smell jasmine
taste wine and her mouth
I am wind, river, mountain
fire water air

July 26, 1995.

Homemade

Walking into the smell
of your bread baking
is there a way more
always to come home

Haj Ross

4.I.99 Mistywood

For the Anniversary of My Death

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveller
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

1967

W. S. Merwin
In Mark Strand (ed.)
Contemporary American Poets,
American Poetry Since 1940,
The World Publishing Company,
New York (1969), p.226.

Ram Dass quotes Lin Yu Tang as saying:

Western philosophers have always gone under the assumption that fact is something cut and dried. Precise, immobile, very convenient, and ready for examination. The Chinese deny this. The Chinese believe that a fact is something crawling and alive, a little furry and cool to the touch, that crawls down the back of your neck.

From "The Yogas of the Bhagavad Gita," tape six, side B, Naropa Institute, Boulder, Colorado, June 1974.

more poems by:
collins | atwood | merwin | hicok