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    The Earthbound Saint and His Observations
    The Earthbound Saint and His Observations
    The Earthbound Saint and His Observations
    Ebook98 pages40 minutes

    The Earthbound Saint and His Observations

    By Jonathan Gans

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    About this ebook

    This is a collection of observations recorded by a wanderer who says little but writes much. He is a mortal but yearns for the gifts of ascension and return, believing he descended from up there. In the meantime, while here on earth, he opens his senses and discovers pen and paper.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherXlibris US
    Release dateOct 19, 2023
    ISBN9798369409374
    The Earthbound Saint and His Observations
    Author

    Jonathan Gans

    Jonathan Gans is the author of two previous collections of poetry, both published by Xlibris—"49 Poems—Where Are You Leading Me Now” (2000) and “How Little I know” (2010). He is an elementary school educator in Big Sky, Montana where he lives and teaches among wild animals. He is not a saint, nor does he know any. Except this one.

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      Book preview

      The Earthbound Saint and His Observations - Jonathan Gans

      Copyright © 2023 by Jonathan Gans.

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

      in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

      recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

      without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

      Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

      and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

      Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

      Rev. date: 10/16/2023

      Xlibris

      844-714-8691

      www.Xlibris.com

      856350

      Contents

      The Earthbound Saint and His Observations

      Ghosts and the Waters

      A Signpost

      Wheel

      Poets and Their Fathers

      Carapace View From Leaning Overboard

      Faun, Fully Growing

      Gangster Jesus

      Sage

      Book For Two: A Fantasy

      Ember

      Dust

      Answer To Stress

      The Stone That Found Me

      Story of a Rock

      Buffalo Burning

      Consolation Prize

      Mechanic

      Copenhagen Tin

      The Alcoholic

      Vandals

      Rosenborg

      The Birth of The Shadow

      The Left Hand

      Curvature of the Earth

      Pre-Occupations

      Runes

      Revisionism

      Superstition—The Mole

      The Nerve

      Half Dollar

      October

      The Construction of the Conch

      The Drip of The Clock

      White

      Fox

      Tourists

      Food Chain

      Origins

      The Elusive Stars

      Relief

      Saltwater Braille

      Math

      Sword

      Burn Pile

      Away it Seemed

      The Delay

      Wood and Silver

      Horticulture

      Echo

      Daisy, Artifact

      Those Things Kept Hidden

      Age Damage

      Without

      Forest of the Sea

      Fade to Gray

      The Castle Garden

      The Weed

      The Spider

      Merciless

      Rabid

      Vanity

      The Painter

      Shot Full Of Holes

      Window Seat

      The Older Brother

      Courtship

      Bequest Request

      Tongue, Tooth, Torch

      The Inheritance

      Pine Tree Symposium

      Stream Symposium

      Waking from Sleep After Vegan Dreams

      Heredity

      Myopia: A Memoir

      The Earthbound Saint

      and His Observations

      37121.png

      On Heaven and Hell, for a start

      I suppose that Heaven might be underground and Hell in a cave-cloud above

      Why not, since no one has been inside either extreme and returned

      It’s all mere imagination, and what we’ve soaked up

      With our fearful or dreamy eyes out of picture books, dirty chapters

      Or faded tapestries, blood-shot paintings in oil

      Meticulously guarded and restored

      I am going to re-orient myself to this Heaven that is in the hard earth

      The deep rooted greenest grasses, the folded rock thrust up

      From a time no one has ever seen

      What must that have sounded like, that heave of heaven?

      No one was there to hear so it was silent, and let loose

      The flood of water beneath it, the beginnings of an eternal river

      Deeper, broader, swifter in current

      Than anything we see now upon the land

      A heavenly flow of which we have only the smallest notion

      This underground heaven

      The fluid source to inspire prayer

      I need to drill down and stop looking up

      Ghosts and the Waters

      37125.png

      The runaway mare

      The bucking yearling

      The wounded buffalo

      The unbidden memory

      The harsh words

      The spanked child

      The tortured cat

      The years faithful only to lust as love was sacrificed

      The money gambled on wax-winged ventures

      The drunken proposals of marriage

      How can a single body still be a whole thing

      Having suffered those ghosts in the body, the mind, the soul

      Those impolite ghosts of all the breaks, sprains, bone chips, and cracks

      That lie deep, retained, in the reservoirs

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