Oh For God's Sake
By Jnana Hodson

People assumed we were together. You told me

to be patient. I was always there, even that time

when he, too, came to fetch you. But were

you anywhere, for example, when I came

out of anesthesia intensely envisioning

your hovering above me only to encounter

an old man’s face. My angel had run off

for a day with wild ponies. Repeatedly,

from your move to Manhattan on, I’d been left

holding the bag, a third of the goods in the U-Haul

were yours, and you weren’t even there to help

unload it. I had to hire others. You wonder

why I tired of tripping over the boxes you left

overwhelmed by anxiety, anger, abandonment!

I needed your hands more than promises

Born in Dayton, Ohio, and a graduate of Indiana University, I continue in the tradition of spiritual renaming, which may be seen in both Biblical and Native-American examples. In my case, the name Jnana (commonly pronounced Ja-NAN-a, Sanskrit for the path of intellect or discernment) was bestowed when I dwelled in a Yoga ashram in eastern Pennsylvania.

As a professional journalist, I’ve 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, my writing has grown out of spiritual exploration. Often, seeking the unique cadence of each place I’ve dwelled. 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 I employ - is a central concern in much of my poetry.