The cardinal flew across the road
in front of me, a blur of red
but precise in its flight as I added
meaning to the moment,
something about spring, something
about what comes again,
something about the faithfulness
of returning. It could have been
a moment of conversion, my Damascus
road experience. Or simply
a cardinal flying deeper into the woods
to the other side of the road.
-Byron Hoot
I have now lived nearly seven years alone
except for two covid years my youngest
son lived with me in that milk and honey
time of near solitude this home on this hill
provided. A safe haven of fishing and hunting
seasons, trips to town buying what was needed,
no shopping. I’ve had time to consider this
choice of place that seemed provided by signs
and wonders, of time putting circumstances
in place, of me deciding. A cringe of second-guessing
has arisen. I don’t know why but what I know
is I can’t deny the shadow cast by it. Not great
but enough for me to recognize.
I’ve never trusted second-guessing, that knowing
after the fact what could not be known before
some now becomes some then. The restlessness
of age has entered me. That longing for more
knowing there’s only less to take in. That sense
of not wanting to miss what’s given. I don’t want
my death poem to be, I wished for a fuller/ life lived.
These years of near solitude have taught me
a thing or two. Forgive my doubts; I bow to where I am.
-Byron Hoot
I can tell by what’s in the air
I’d best pay attention today.
I feel as if I am prey and hunter;
nothing new there.
Who has not felt that dichotomy,
that ambiguous feeling
of when you carry yourself as
prey and hunter in stride?
I stretch like a bear waking,
sniff the air, remember where
I am, cast a suspicious eye
and ear to the four directions.
Make a sacrifice to time remembering
dreams and stories, finding
words like sign that take me where
I’ve never been. I have seen
and heard and felt and know things
I cannot speak of and yet
the urge to speak troubles me –
the healing water, the whirlpool
beside it, a foot touching each.
-Byron Hoot
“Sigmund, when did you first know
you wanted to kill your father
and take your mother as your lover?
Try hard to remember.”
I never did. That story is based upon
a case of mistaken identity.
Oedipus never knew his father.
A prophet told a lie that became
true. Laius and Jocasta believed
the prophecy and committed the most
hideous act of all knowingly.
“I see you don’t believe.”
That I want to kill my father? Sleep
with my mother? No, indeed.
“We don’t know what we want,
do we?”
I’ve never heard you say you wanted
to kill father, sleep with mother.
It’s always someone else’s truth
you know better than they do.
“Excuse me,” he says, bends over
the table, sits up, squeezes his nose,
runs a finger over his teeth.
“You need to understand the power
of the unconscious.”
Mine or yours? Or don’t you have one?
“I’ve had enough. I’m going to leave.”
Don’t say another word, you’ve said enough.
-Byron Hoot
visit hootnhowlpoetry.com
More and more I am drawn
to roads where trees form
a tunnel of branches, the sun
refracted in its light that cannot
fully penetrate that canopy.
And gray, rainy days to drive
these roads looking ahead
and left and right, checking
the rearview mirrors for
the unseen revealed suddenly
as my heart whispers to my
memories, “Come to me. Come
next to me” the rhythm of the wipers
taking on that ancient rhythm
of that dance always recognized
once that first step is taken
and then knowing there’s no
turning back, no refusal to drive
these roads in the tunnel of trees --
rain falling, the light just right
to see the unseen, the shadows
that argue their existence.
-Byron Hoot
I feel like a bear waking
to no breeze, hearing
birds, looking to the sky
with sleep-and-dream filled
eyes and the hesitation
of any movement but that slow,
deliberate bear dance where
the bear towers over everything
except its shadow and the pads
of the paws feel that earthen
drumbeat and the heart picks
up that rhythm that makes me
grin that dangerous bear grin
as I close my eyes, sway, shuffle,
the smell of wild blackberries
not too far away as the song I
sing in that low growl
enters the air like a prayer
I don’t care that's ever answered.
-Byron Hoot
hootism: the richness of the mind has a hard time standing in the presence of the imagination divine.
