Featured Writer: Jnana Hodson

DAKOTA LEAP

Bad Lands

DHARMA TURNABOUT

In this conformity of nonconformity
another mountain stream rages
against gravity in springtime.
Demons bark at saints and beasts.
Sometimes, even dogs are awed
by what's holy.
My pilgrimage follows
discontent that also requires
submission, a grounding of fireflies
or incense beclouding a room.
Folly's no laughing matter
Swami insisted amid chortles.
She said a Bodhisattva
in the Roman Catholic basilica
has a pedestal of weeping.
A grapevine step
distends and encloses
your father's piety.
Not many of my most logical
actions in the end
turned out wisest.

Jnana Hodson was born in Dayton, Ohio, and is a graduate of Indiana University, he continues in the tradition of spiritual renaming, which may be seen in both Biblical and Native-American examples. In his case, the name Jnana (commonly pronounced Ja-NAN-a, Sanskrit for the path of intellect or discernment) was bestowed when he dwelled in a Yoga ashram in eastern Pennsylvania. As a professional journalist, he has also resided in Upstate New York, in two additional quarters of Ohio, in desert-expanse orchards of Washington State, in the Mississippi River ribbon of eastern Iowa, in the harbor city of Baltimore, and finally in former textile-mill towns of New Hampshire. All along, his writing has grown out of spiritual exploration, often, seeking the unique cadence of each place that he has dwelled, and at other times, delving headlong into confrontations and paradoxes that entangle present-day romance, sexual attraction, and intimacy, not infrequently, as mythology has long demonstrated, landscapes and loving overlap. Experimentation - a desire to discover, by trial and error, structures and language to synthesize the details he employs - is a central concern in much of his poetry.

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