In praise of the first day of Autumn

The Sun sets at the end of the boulevard
The cicadas' song becomes uncertain
The sky has no depth, only width,
Like a canvas stretched taut
Over the frame of the horizon

The equipoise of Autumn
Is the pause
In the respiration
Of the seasons --
The playground swing
At its apex,

Waiting to tumble back
Into the
Before
Of dark days
Cold nights
Turning inward
Waiting

And yet,
The moment of turning
The tiniest caesura,
By the time we awaken to it,
Has already passed

And so we, too,
Fall
in the immodest hope that,
Like all else that lives
And breathes

We will rise again.

--Mr. Gobley

How to Become a Ghost

First, put yourself at the center
Of an imaginary cosmos.

Next, dwell on the wrongs you've suffered:
The wounds,
The injustices,
The slow and halting
Healing:

How could
You, on whom
All
Rests,
Be subjected to this?

Finally, live for the future
While dwelling inwardly
On the past.

Free of the
Bulging burden
Of the present,
You will become
Translucent,
Then transparent,

Until all that is left of you

Is a scar.

--Mr. Gobley

In praise of a heat wave

Today, the Sun seems
Omnipresent,
Its fervid heat
Diffused in languid drops


That fall onto
My neck
And burn toward
My bones

Just today,
The cicadas
Proclaim the triumph
Of heat
Over all
Who walk,
Fly and crawl

The grass sends up damp
Curtains of chlorophyll,
The leaves bow and sulk
Before their intemperate
Lord

i stay low,
And remember
The deep snows
And the
Driving storms


The weather,
Like all other spiritual forces,
Is not personal,
Is intensely personal,
Is vast and private,
Mysterious
And self-evident

It makes me want to go on
Sweating, drinking,
Lying in the shade
Of the great question
To which the cicada
Sings
The only answer.

--Mr. Gobley

The Crabapple Tree

Its blossoms full
The air
All
Pregnant, swollen

Until fat drops of rain
Fell like oil

Astonishing as a shooting star

Each drop that struck
A blossom
Caused a snowstorm
Of petals

Thunder rolled like a barrel
Across the oaken vault
Of the attic sky

And the blossoms leapt
Pirouetted
Rested

Red, waxen leaves
Standing at attention
For their fallen leaders

The heralds of the season
Celebrating their own
Spectacular
Fall

And the pores of the earth
Opening to receive the
Unguent
of a
Spring
Rain.

Passing Over

i fly too low.
At this moment
of beckoning liberty
i must promise myself
not to inspect
all that i
pass over.

The loved,
the miraculous
and the missed:
these will beckon,
and these will i gaze upon . . .

And if by some chance
i learn to truly see,
then all that I pass over
will not snag the narrow nerves
and tender corpuscles

That pulsate and quiver
And thrill at pain and injustice.

In passing over
all that is, at last,
i'll simply be.

Until such time as
Earth and sky
At last pass over
me.

--Mr. Gobley

The Old Folks' Home

Well past sunset,
My parents and i
Reminisce, laugh,
Squint at each other's
Emerging silhouettes.

Under the darkening dome, a parade:
Children inventing a dance
Of Sun worship,
Teenagers flirting,
Pelicans commuting back
To their mangrove perches
Above a sea
Sighing itself
To sleep.

All we have is behind us,
And all with which we have been
Blessed
Is spread before us.

The horizon hints of morning.

There is no beginning and no end.

It was ever thus.

--Mr. Gobley

The Wave

We live on a thin crust of good fortune,
At the edge of a sea of chance.

Every ripple in the sea reorders the cosmos
For some living being.

Live with this knowledge,
And then,
Even when all is washed away,
You will be able
To gather the strength
To begin again.

--Mr. Gobley

Everything is running

Even the cars in the parking lot are running:
A woman sits at the steering wheel
Of her SUV,
Window cracked,
Smoking a cigarette.

In the far corner of the lot,
The engine of the Dodge Charger
Is running, too,
But no one is visible:

The seat is tilted back,
The driver asleep.

He needs the engine to run
So he can be warm.

Everything is running.
All may not be revealed,
But certainly all will be replenished
From the inexhaustible
Horn of plenty
Laid before us.

Our lives, too,
Like our engines
And our dreams,
Our naps
And our cigarette breaks,
Will go on
Uninterrupted.

Even after we awake,
Even when
The cigarette
Lies crushed and smouldering
Beside the retention pond.

Our comfort is perpetual,
Our rest undisturbed.
When the last drop of oxygen
is absorbed into
The last lonely vessel.

Slow asphyxia
Is a small price to pay
For all the comfort
For which
We have poorly paid.

Up until then,
We will rot
At room temperature,
Assured of a perfectly
Comfortable
And eternal
Rest.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of Staying Home on a Saturday Night

The house labors all week
To hold us --
We, who, in our haste
Toward nothing,
Hurtle from its
Careful carpentry
Into halls of
Concrete
Or to frozen fields;

We,
With our large ambitions
Encased in
Fragile frames,

Must at last
Come home.

There is, in shelter,
A splinter of
Such solace
As the angels must know
In the presence of
The All-Knowing.

Gathered together,
For a moment,
We truly live together:
Framed in fleeting harmony,
Embraced in solitary splendor,

We realize, again,
That we have each other
So briefly,
And must hold each other
For this brief
Eternity,
So that all that is without
May come within.

--Mr. Gobley

A Roof in a Snowstorm

Today the new roof
Juts its serrated jaw
At the elements,
Which are not impressed.

A new roof revives the self-esteem
Of brick and mortar, rather like

A new hat bestows new grace
To an old gentleman.

Some day, the elements will have won,
But today, the roof seems to lean
Into the wind and welcome its worst.

From behind the frosted windows,
i thank the Maker of all Shelters,
Even as i bow
To that same Force,

Which bends Its might

To taking back,
In tiny increments
And fierce blows,
The very shelter It provided.

--Mr. Gobley

Having Given Thanks

Having given thanks,
i rise toward my obligations
unaware of their weight

send orisons
hosannahs
to the four corners of the compass
whence dwells the All

And save some small part
Of my shattered self
For the days that will be:

i must rise in all directions,
Even downward:
i will not rest
Until all have given thanks
For All . . .

--Mr. Gobley

The Gift of the Dying

The gift of the dying
Is their knowing.

The dying know it all
But only their eyes say so.

And what they say is this:

Go. Live. Sing.
Pray for me,
But don't spend all day on it.

Outside, the world
Is growing accustomed
To my absence,
And being ceaselessly amazed
At the arrivals,
Raw from their journey and,
Like you, shocked
At being torn away.

Turn your attention to me,
Ever so briefly,
Say the dying,

So that the fierce forward-leaning
Nowness
Of life
Can shock you anew,

And build your resolve
To call out to the cosmos
With all the devoted desperation

Of your borrowed soul.

Go,
Say the dying with their fluttering eyes.
Go, but don't leave me.
Come back,
So i can see what coming back is like,
Once more,

And so that you may remember
That in coming back,
You are practiced
In the art that i learn even now:
The art
Of going
Home.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of Ritual

The young woman steps up
Into a forest of adults,
Their gnarled hands
Extended
As shields,
As signs,
As cudgels,
Their prayer shawls
Billowing like sails,
Conveying her along
On this raft of ritual.

None of the practice,
The memorization,
The chanting,
The slow disappearance of vowels,
Her first real look at the mottled
Parchment, so clearly
An animal's hide --

None of it prepared her for this moment,
But in this way it is like the rest of life
After the ritual:

You prepare, but are still rudderless,
You are expert and yet unschooled.
You know, and know not.

Her pulse pounding in her throat,
She begins, weakly at first.
Her eyes are dry.
The letters on the parchment blur
When she blinks.

And then, the transformation occurs:
The letters are singing:
She merely opens her throat
To let them pass through.

When she is done,
The great gnarled fists
Open and bring her
Into embrace.

None of it makes any sense --
And after all, why should it?

Paths and mountains do not
Make sense --
They merely lower
Themselves to you,
Imperceptibly,
When you commit to them,

And begin to climb.

--Mr. Gobley

Two and a Half Donuts

We eat the concentric rings of our lives.
The crescent that cradles what's left
Of our hollow center
Slides down time's throat,
Taking our soul with it.

All that is held
Is held in the center:
Air, emptiness:
Memory.

The first donut firmly establishes this lesson
In the mind of the initiate.
The slight crunch of the baked shell
Between your teeth,
The surrender of the dough
To your steaming palate,
Move you through the lesson,
But your lust overwhelms it.

The second donut,
Eaten more deliberately,
Chewed more thoughtfully,
Is the beginning of
An Awakening.

And the last half --
Which begins with the cradled emptiness
And ends with substance --
Is a crullered coda:

Never do once,
Thoughtlessly,
What can be done
(With deepening concentration
Wonder
Appreciation)
Two
And a half
Times.

In Praise of Small Change

The obdurate, obstinate coin:

Hangnail of capital,
Orphan of the bank note,
Shard of shattered worth;

Erstwhile screwdriver,
Denizen of ashtrays,
Swimming in figure-stamped schools
Through childrens' desks:

How you exemplify all that is good!

In the dark, in the drawer,
In the jug behind the door,
Buried under strata of
Your brethren,
You remain
At attention,
Neither more
Nor less
Than you were
(Inflation does not
Diminish your constancy).

At night, the upside-down presidents
Confer with their neighbors,
The flag-bearing cavalry
Of a chivalrous state,

And determine to
Stay the Course.

And stay they do.

There is no better friend than these:
Both flat and round,
Historic and hum-drum,
They move through time
By standing still
As we hurry by,

Scrambling to be worth
Only a little less
Than we were worth
A moment ago.

--Mr. Gobley

When God Created Godself

When God created Godself,
She unfurled into a cosmos
Of Becoming
And made room out of
What had not been
For what would yet be.

"This," God said,
"Is where I will reside:
In the nexus where non-Being
Meets Being --
Where No-Thing
Meets Becoming."

And it is here --
In life's forward-leaning
Love of Being,
And in Mind's
Restless Minding,

That God speaks.
Here you will find
The smallest of all miracles
And the greatest of all forces --

The thumbnail's growth
And the glacier's grinding solace.

All that is and will be
Spirals from the womb
Of the first
Becoming --

Returning,
Beyond our wildest dreams,
To Her,
The Self-Making
Mind
Of all Presence.

Turn back now.
Make a pact with
Becoming.
Untie the knots of
Insistence
And Pride
That tether you
To merely having been.

Not to be
Born Again,
But to continue
Being born,

Is the tireless task
Through which
She
Becomes
You.

--Mr. Gobley

In Praise of Growing Old

How else would i come to understand
(Other than from my garden)
That decay nourishes life?

How better to learn
That humility
Is no mere virtue,
But a survival skill?

What better way to appreciate
The fleeting heroism of youth?

When else would i understand,
In my viscera,
The smooth, accelerating curves
That are the contours of time?

How else would i know
That there is no God,
Except the beingness,
The eagerness of forward-leaning
Life
That, given half a chance,

Restlessly proclaims
The "is-ing"
That everywhere
Is?

How else would i know
The arc
Of an unending love?

How else
Would i learn
To say goodbye?

--Mr. Gobley

The Elegant, Intelligent Telephone

It knows me.
It says so.

It marshalls a parade of universes under my nose,
Customized to my vanities and idiosyncrasies.

It orders my day,
Proffers my priorities,
Summarizes my finances,
Reminds me of meetings.

All the variables of life --
All tragedies,
Mysteries,
Great loves,
Approaching thunderstorms --
Are known to it.

What was so recently impossible
Is now indispensable.

Nothing exists
That cannot be ordered,
Animated,
Displayed;

My hand commands a universe:
Another galaxy of
Illumined cubes
Slides into view;

i am summoned . . .
--Mr. Gobley

A Pain in the Neck

i love a good pain in the neck.

i love the communal efforts
of my constituent parts
to find, address, soothe,
heal.

Pains, i know, can be ominous:
These i do not love.

What i cherish
Are those pains
That remind me
That i am plugged in --

That synapses and nerve endings,
Corpuscles and cartilage
Are challenged --

That they, too, react and respond.
i am a Tower of Babel,
Reaching toward the Sun --
Made of bricks that breathe.

Unguents and anti-inflammatories
Will reduce the pain
And gently draw a veil over
The urgent, insistent truth:

We are built on air,
Anchored in water.
Tunnels of time run through us.
Atoms collide.
Things fall apart.

We die.

And we go on.

--Mr. Gobley

Independence

Independence
Is a habit of mind:

It is both a gentle insistence
On setting oneself apart

And a vigilant openness
Toward every aspect of the universe.

It is the birth of real hope,
Being the death of captive fantasy.

Independence
Comes from being
Neither slave nor master.

A braid of
One's best attributes --

Humility,
Bravery,
Persistence --

Independence proclaims itself
The way a flower
Or a stream might--

By simply being,
In each moment,
Insistent on itself
As inevitable,
Timeless
And new.

--Mr. Gobley