Description:
The poet possesses a remarkable ability to communicate profound truths through concise and elegant verses. The poems linger in the reader's mind, inviting repeated readings and revealing new layers of meaning with every encounter.GARDEN OF THE GODSThe plains come down from the north:
level fertile feminine assuring
and biblical: hills low, crooked straight
rough places plain
of a garden made by the gods
fierce gods of fire: Vulcan, Logi, Agni made to erupt from the bowels of earth
three hundred millions years ago,
breaking through its crust
making plain places rough as
a monstrous turmoil of violence
from the fiery furnace of hell. You feel it still today
looking down into deep gorges
from sharp edges of high rocks,
facing high wind blowing
between low clouds and across layered hills,
holding on to parched trees
and stepping carefully from the peril
of plunging to the bottom where
dwell surviving animals and
buzzards hovering overhead and
looking down for those of unsteady step and you think of the natives
who deferred to gods as
creators of the land and forces of nature,
sensibly awed and humbled before
the mighty works of a stone miracle and the fear of early settlers
who stopped to stay in docile plains,
not daring to venture farther
into austere wilderness made not
for the horse or plow of farming. You know you do not belong
here on these high rocks of danger
and severe creation of nature
except to come and go
via modern vehicle and highway,
for you are not a survivor
like natives who came before and
bowed to the garden of the gods. Jim Hanson is a sociologist and retired Senior Researcher at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale who has taught sociology and community development, and has worked in community and economic development and as a civil rights and anti-war community organizer. He is a lay-ordained Zen Buddhist who lives in the St. Louis area with his wife, Carol. His poetry collections include - Faith Lost and Found by Cyberwit in 2024, Ruminations: Poems on Living and Dying by Cyberwit in 2023, Perspective: Educational Poems on the Humanities and Sciences by Wipf and Stock in 2023, Endless Journey: Poems in Search of Meaning by Spartan Press in 2022, and chapbook Anthropic Musings in 2019. Single poems have appeared in some thirty websites and printings. He is a member of the Illinois State Poetry Society Southern Chapter and St. Louis Poetry Center.