What have you done, dandelion?

What have you done, dandelion?
How will you pay your rent on this hillside?
Anton Chekhov was a doctor
and wrote great novels.
What have you done, dandelion?

What have you done, dandelion?
What have you done, little butterfly?
What have you done, grassy hillside?
How will you fulfill your obligation to society?
What have you done, dandelion?

What have you done?
How will you live?
What have you achieved?
What will your legacy be?
What have you done, dandelion?

What have you done, dandelion?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a musical prodigy at age 4.
Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity.
Genghis Khan conquered most of several continents.
What have you done, dandelion?

What have you done for America, Dandelion?
At least get a job selling lottery tickets and cigarettes
instead of absorbing the free sunshine all day.
Please, dandelion, please!
What will you do, dandelion?

What will you do?

-Jim DuBois
April 24, 2016

As I walked along the road

As I walked along the road
thinking about nature
            about vast uncivilized wilderness
            about technology destroying nature
I failed to notice the thick undergrowth by the roadside
                        the harmony of where I was
                        the perfect union of tar and tree
                                                    pavement and grass
                                                    myself and my surroundings

As I sat in my room
looking out the window
I failed to notice the glass in the panes
                        the dirt on the grass
                        my eyes


-Jim DuBois
Fall 1991

---

This was probably the first poem I wrote in my adult life, and it was kind of like a liberating ephipany that I could notice something, have something to say about it simply and directly, and write it down in a way that pleased me, slowed people down, and enhanced the meaning with its form.

I Can't Tell

I can't tell
if I'm depressed, or relaxed,
or on the verge of
an existential awakening,

but the sun and hats
are enjoyable
in the winter wind,

and the dry weeds
are rustling
beside the fence.


-Jim DuBois
Jan 19, 2013

It Was A Good Day

Going to bed last night,
I suddenly remembered
you, barefoot,
calmly leading the Clydesdales^*
out to the pasture,
while I ate mulberries
and watched
from up in the tree,
and later,
we ate red raspberries
off the vines
and talked about
how the world
keeps on giving.


-Jim DuBois
April 13, 2010

---

* a Clydesdale is a type of horse. They are very large and stocky.
Learn more about them

Old Cat

Look at the
O-L-D
cat lying in the sun

Look at the
green green grass

Look at the Cat

Look at the Sun

Sun
Sun
Sun

Cat
Cat
Cat


-Jim DuBois
Nov 21, 2003

Summer, anyway

Bird, hopping on a gravestone

Bird perched on a tomb

The green green grass

Sweat standing on my neck



-Jim DuBois
July 20, 2003

Ordinary Days on Planet Earth

The light from the sun
travels to earth every day,
soaks into the ground,
        the dirt,
        the water,
        the rocks,

and the plants burst upwards
in a multitude of colors

and the animals grow
and change
and evolve,
wandering over the land
and in the sea

and the people
are simply starlight
with brains and hands

they create marvelous art and music

they solve incredible problems
with knowledge, ingenuity
and vast imaginations

they invent technology
to communicate with each other
and transform the lives
of billions

and though they
don't always know it,
they are
        striving striving striving
to be good,
and kind
to one another.


-Jim DuBois
Aug 11, 2009

(Discarded Left-over Abandoned Forgotten)Edges + Lost Places

                             vacant upstairs apartment
I broke into the

And crept out onto the roof

I kept thinking of
            the cracks in the sidewalk
            the grass growing in the alley
            the vines on the fence
                  between the parking lots

The forgotten places where
      two things border one another

The discarded, left-over space between
      one clear definition and another

Cracks
            Borders
                        Edges

The places people rarely look into
            like beneath the sofa cushions where the change collects

or
      the strip of trees beside the highway where I
found the skull of a dog
and undergrowth so thick
      you couldn’t walk through it


-Jim DuBois
July 20, 1998

Hollow Metal Phantoms (Jan 25, 2006)

Hollow metal phantoms
hurtling towards oblivion

The roots of the pea plants
tangled around my heart

Wasting and saving time
vanish like ghosts in light



-Jim