Koon Woon reading his poem "In my little room."

Koon Woon reading his poem "In my little room."

the aspens

standing in the glacial till

where the river rocks drift

along the slow seasons

consecrated of root and thorn
illuminated by leaf and berry

practicing mindfulness again

after hard years of becoming

there’s a sad feeling of being

simply awkward and old

but the communion with silence

evokes the quietest of sounds

touchingly and achingly clear

the linen white boles of aspens

the spring green leaves

trembling

Joe LaBreck ----- Three Poems

Finding Skill

Parking lot pennies and shells on the beach,

Gaining the image and where you should seek.

Whales in the ocean and planes in the skies,

Wanting to find it and moving the eyes.

Deer in the forest and shelves full of shoes,

A lifetime of practice with no mouse to use.

  

Follow-Up

Quite early in that first grade year

a teacher said about one boy

that you could write his name in ink

above a city jail cell door.

Now we all hoped it wasn’t true,

and tried each day to give to him,

and all the other kids, the kinds of skills

they’d need to keep them from that fate.

This happened forty years ago.

And still each week I read the list

the paper prints of people booked

into that city jail, and when

I see my students there, I find

I’m not surprised by who they are,

and tell myself that those not named

are living lives of great success.

Fishing In Confusion

She reels me in and casts me back.

Her hook is snelled and quells my speech. 

The thought of slough stays on my tongue. 

Upon her voice I’m pierced and dazed.

I taste her tone.  It floods my eyes.   

She takes me down beside the tide. 

She angles with a velvet lure. 

A lurid idea comes with her hook. 

An ouzel bobs approval.  It

may change my mind.  She casts a stone

upon the flow.  Ironwood it is, 

but on the surface it does skip.

Hers is a heart-shaped stone of love.

My heart does skips.  I walk on water.

Precious she is.  She deeply sinks

in reflection, to rise allured

by weighty promise: a promise that’s

a barbed hook for castaways

joined on an ever winding reel.