In his poem “Last Hour of Solo Retreat on the Peak of a Fearless Mountain” poet Jay Jacobs invites readers to breathe and accept. With an animistic touch, Jay’s poem personifies an autumn fog’s ascension from valley floor to the narrator’s mountain summit as the rising of a flowing fog dragon, an avatar of ease, acceptance, and openness which one can only hope to emulate.
Last Hour of Solo Retreat on the Peak of a Fearless Mountain
A fog dragon nuzzles
——-its chin against
the bristly confines
of this speartip
——-valley’s floor,
scratching this early morning
itch of mid-Autumn,
swaying without resistance
——-in a billowy mass
to the tune of a
——-shifting
chilled breeze.
Looking down on this,
on the precipice of
a wet, trudging
——-descent
————–back to other humans—
I will enter this dragon
and inhale,
hopefully catching the
——-contagion of its
————–receptive ease.
Jay Jacobs
Jay Jacobs lives in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood at possibly the loudest intersection in the world. After several years in the quiet of monasteries and religious communities, he now devotes his time to chaplaincy formation, community care as a social worker, and the ordinary work of love. His writing is shaped by contemplative practice and study and by an interest in the ways tenderness endures amid disruption, loss, and change.
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Just leaving the Philippines after three weeks. Time in Manila and Cebu City suggest Jay does not live at the loudest intersection in the world. But in the mountains here, along rustic coastlines, hours spent hoping to absorb the contagion…beautifully done. Thank you