jopomojo

the cable bridge and

beyond it the old

railroad bridge and then the sun

aswim like a memory

rising through the cream

in my morning cup

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this highway i drive at sunset takes me through layers of memory that are parts of the present because like bill said was is really is

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when i was a child

i'd sometimes visit

my friend's farm out past paha

on the paha-packard road

but never did we

see such a sunset

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High Drive's your best bet for viewing the sunrise

In the winter months in old Spokane. The bluffs

Stretch out below you with pines receding down

To the railroad tracks and Hangman Creek, the highway

That goes past pieces of my past,

Spangle and Plaza and the rolling Palouse hills.

This morning I look at the sky above those hills

With changing colors that announce the coming sunrise

And foretell a mostly blue-sky day though past,

Well past, the point of freezing, when winter's bluffs

In the seasonal poker game go down the highway

With all your cash pocketed in the goose down.

The truth is I'm feeling just a bit down

With the winter blues and I wish I could wander the hills

All the way to the border and find a hidden highway

To make my crossing under the warming sunrise

To where we'd have our house up on some bluffs

Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and boats sailing past.

I wish I could seize ahold of our separate past

And make it connect from here all the way down

To the eternal verities where God or the universe bluffs

Us into thinking there's gold hidden in the hills

When in fact it's beaming down from sunrise to sunrise

And it's under our wheels as we flee, paving the highway.

What I really want is to be driving down that highway

With you riding shotgun, pulling our trailer of the past

Towards the new and long-awaited golden sunrise

Of the mysterious future but filled up and weighed down

With the fullness of our beautiful present, the hills

Of Eastern Washington colliding with heaven's bluffs

Where you and I will accept the morning's bluffs

As the sky becomes an orange highway

With coffee-colored clouds above the green hills

Of the coming spring and the present zooming past.

We'll drive that golden road all the way down

To Pullman and beyond to an as yet unknown sunrise

And I'll hold your sunrise hand as we recall these bluffs,

The arrowleaf balsam down along the winding highway,

Creating our own new past from these memories of the hills.

Screenshot for the sake of the integrity of the line breaks on the small screens:

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the blue of the sky the gold of the sun the white and the green of the clouds and trees and the scent of pine needles hanging in the frozen air

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in the beginning

of the day open

your eyes and breathe in

deeply and then let your breath

out naturally

as the sun rises

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dear reader this is your friend jonathan reporting live from thirty below isn't it lovely thank you for reading and for existing

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the cold ground beneath

my thinly shoed feet

feels as though it could freeze me

from the ankles up and turn

me into a tree

dreaming of the spring

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jopomojo.substack.com/subscribe