All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Foundation of House in Floodplain

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FLOODS

I submerged myself

In the reservoir, plunging

Down the denuded slope into

The canyon emptied by drought,

And settled on a pounding stone

At the confluence,

Where a newt floated

In a mortar next to a pestle,

An ancient trail leading

West toward another abandoned

Village, and east toward the flats

Through a thick, underwater crop

Of cockleburs that flourish

Wherever the reservoir

Has chewed away the woodlands,

A chimney looming alone

With the name Chuck Morris

Engraved twice before the house

Drowned and floated away.

Forty years ago, my family

Migrated from L.A., all

Of us in a van winding

Around the reservoir a month

later.  We settled on a spot

Near the flats and while

My father fished, I stumbled

On a web and gazed transfixed

At the intricate tapestry until

I glimpsed a bulbous spider.

I fled as if I’d encountered

The frightful weaver

Of our fate, and I found

Upstream the foundation

Of a ranch house, the concrete

Broken up by the roots

Of oak trees claiming

The former rooms, the rest

Of the house swept away

By floods over the years.

And there I heard the voice

Of my daimon: “You will

Be back in thirty-five years.”

Thirty-five years later

I returned after several floods

Had torn through the canyon

Sweeping over our favorite

Hole. One year, I teetered,

Amazed by the force

Of the flood, sensing

A hush underneath the roar,

A silence rising as the flood

Slowly subsided. By then

Most of the people in that van

Were gone, my father,

Grandparents, and uncle side

By side in Clovis Cemetery,

My brother in another state,

My father, forty years ago,

Always facing the depths--

I could not tell him

Of the clear voice of my soul

Or how I could feel him

Tuning his soul to the quiet

Rhythms of water as he

Cast his line and waited....

I no longer grasp water

Or miss the webs

Torn by the wind

Or even attempt to cast

A line as I immerse myself

In the quiet, spiders marching out

Of a crack and wobbling

Toward me, a timeless peace

Drenching the floodplain....

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Fairy Lanterns

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A TRIP TO ROSE HILLS IN L.A.

His living room the same
For thirty-three years:
Immaculate sofa and carpet,
A cuckoo clock, a decoupage
Of children kissing
(my aunt’s creation)--
I was fourteen again,
Paralyzed on the sofa
After the funeral, their
Only son, who resembled me,
Crushed in a car accident,
No time in between as I squeezed
Between my mother
And brother on the sofa.

At the funeral, my uncle
Had grabbed his son’s hand
From the casket and wouldn’t
Let go. I waited, next
In line, suddenly turning away
And bursting through the chapel door,
Tears streaming down my face,
Perhaps the first time I ever sobbed
For anyone else. I paced outside,
The door suddenly too heavy

To push open, until
A funeral director kindly
Opened it with one hand and motioned
Me inside. Of course I went back inside,
But I don’t remember anything else.
Three decades later,
At Rose Hills, my uncle
Searched a few
Difficult moments for
His wife and son,
The headstones all flat
On the ground. As I gazed
At L.A. below, I couldn’t
Remember any time passing.
Had I continued pacing, lost
Among the headstones,
For thirty-three years?
Was my uncle weeping beside
The graves because his son
Had unexpectedly returned,
But overweight now and bald--
Or because I now resembled
My father, who died three
Decades ago? Had he kept
The house the same, hoping
This day would arrive? I
Was always just a few
Hundred miles away.
Suddenly I knew why my uncle
Was crying again:
For thirty-three years,
We couldn’t find
Each other. His tears
Were also for his wife
And his son, yes,
But as he cried, I was, happily,
His nephew and his brother
And his son, no years ever
Having passed, none of us
Ever lost again.

  All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Kings River, above the Submerged Car

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KINGS RIVER MEDITATIONS

A cute girl, possibly

thirteen, legs crossed, 

eyes closed, twenty feet

from the Kings River, 

remained totally unaware

that my friend and I

were gawking

at her. Grabbing

a smooth stone, the size

of an egg, my friend

lifted his arm, muttering

curses at her, and I

lunged to stop him. Two

years older and stronger, 

my friend just frowned 

in disgust and dropped 

the stone, stumbling off. 

The girl never stirred.

And I never got the nerve

to ask her what

she was doing. I finally

scurried away, infatuated,

never to see the girl

again. Cross-legged

by the Kings River, almost 

forty years later, 

close to the spot where 

she had meditated,

I remember a photo of me

and my friend holding up

with pride a necklace

of fish.  That same 

morning, forty years

ago, I had spotted

a car in the depths

of the river and shouted

for them to come see.

No matter how excitedly

I pointed, none of them

could perceive the faint

shadow of the car

beneath the glittering

surface of the water,

so no one believed me.

Our fathers both died

a few years later,

my friend gone

to some other state.

The hood of the car

has surfaced,

caught on a rock, tilted

like a stiff, flat tongue.

I close my eyes and empty

my mind, hearing the water

rushing by and then

nothing at all, everything

gone but my awareness

of the void.  But then I feel

and see a sun in my heart

and a golden-equal armed 

cross on my forehead--

I open my eyes, surprised

that I had so quickly

forgotten the people

and the river as I

gaze at bending reeds

And slippery stones

And rushing water....

 All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

San Joaquin River Gorge

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TAG BY THE RIVER

They twirled me around

ten times at the edge

of the campground,

then scattered—I

swayed a little before

lunging at them, each one

vanishing into deer brush

by the river, the water

roaring into a still,

deep pool, then

sweeping around a bend,

a phoebe chirping, barely

out of my reach, on a twig

above the shining edge

of the pool and the rapids.

Tempted to forget the game

and swim across, the water

smooth for a stretch,

then pitilessly raging,

I glimpsed my brother,

fifty feet away, scrambling

as if his life depended

on it, and I sprinted

after him, twenty feet

away before he

disappeared into

the brush again, and I

gave up. Again,

I had failed.

As I leaped

across a stream,

my friends seemed

so distant, impossible

to tag. Two feet away,

the water raged, the sun

kindling my ribs,

the river and earth so

peaceful that I felt,

for the first time, one

with the bushes and trees,

aware that my soul

was ballooning, connected

with something vast, unseen—

the great spirit of the earth,

I imagined. I no longer desired

anything else. My brother finally

found me and scornfully

asked where I’d been,

and we marched back to camp

where I glimpsed in the distance

the shining edge of the still pool

and the pitiless rapids.

All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Pestle with Salamander in Mortar

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INITIATION

Rumor was the older scouts planned to strip us

down to our underwear, cover us in molasses,

pour cornflakes all over us, pee on us,

and throw us into the swift river

at midnight. Instead, after dark

they lured me far beyond

the campground and ditched me.

No moon. No flashlight. At first,

I inched forward, striving to avoid

holes, rocks, fallen branches. Hopeless,

I finally listened for the river

and lurched toward its dull roar until

I found the mossy outhouse at the edge

of the campground. Exhausted by a day

of sprinting here and there, truth

be told, l knew that I would not have lasted

until midnight. Truth be told, I didn’t understand

that being ditched was the real initiation

until forty years later, when once again

alone in the darkness, I recalled

locating the silent camp and crawling

deep into my sleeping bag, warmed

by breath and body heat--so deep

I wondered for a moment if I might

suffocate while I slept. I woke, hearing

my Dad outside the tent asking my friends

where I was. Ready for a new day,

ecstatic that my worst fears had not

been realized, I was like someone

who could not be hurt for long, who

would always find his way even

on a moonless night. If I could

relive that moment so intensely

that I would experience all without

bitterness or regret, letting go

of whatever does not serve me,

would I be like an eternal child

or some god in a perpetual dance? 

  All Text, Music, and Illustrations, including Paintings, Photographs, and 3D models, Copyright © 2022 by Jim Robbins.

Mangled Bridge

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MANGLED BRIDGE AND ROSY CROSS

Scrambling down a steep slope, I knelt before 

an Ithuriel’s spear, a rattlesnake rippling 

by my boot before I could even leap, lizards 

scampering through dry leaves, the river crashing 

 

through the canyon below me. Once I flew over 

unstable stones in the river bottom, struggling 

to keep up with my brother and our friends. Today 

I surveyed each inch before even taking a step. 

 

I found the skeletal steel frame of a washed-out bridge

clinging to a megalithic stone in the middle

of the river, and I remembered:  Forty years ago,

a friend blurted out a story about a collapsed bridge,

 

and without another word we had dashed through

the river bottom to find it. That day I had felt clumsy

and weak (the first signs of chronic illness), and I

just couldn’t keep up.  I had been ditched before

 

on a moonless night and in a cave, but never

abandoned in broad daylight. I was eleven

again, but I'd found the bridge and they hadn't.

Unlike them, I had continued to wander through a forest

 

of symbols, the bridge for a moment a ghastly symbol

of the past forty years. Somehow, I felt the same,

as if I had entered a timeless domain. Our fathers,

who had fished side by side that day,

 

both died a few years later.  Forty years before

in this same river bottom, my Holy

Guardian Angel, my daimon, more than once,

had spoken to me of events to come, decades

 

in the future. Nonplussed, I had forgotten

the voice until the events transpired.

The perplexing, unpredictable angel

is only my soul, whose voice transcends

 

space and time, in this quiet river bottom

and in meditation. Today I closed my eyes,

a rose blooming in my mind's eye, at first

blood-red on a cross of splintery wood,

 

then the petals changing colors, each petal

representing a path on the Tree of Life,

the cross an unfolded cube of space

and time. I could have been anyone

 

these past forty years, and this forest

would have hardly changed, yet

the rose cross blooms inside me

and perhaps eternally abides, a symbol

 

of the soul in timeless grace, the river

lost in time until I opened my eyes again

as a snake was slithering between

dry, slowly curling hands.