STEVEN JAKOBI - POEMS

Steven Jakobi is a retired biology professor. He is the author of a self-published book of nonfiction short stories, Birds, Bats, Bugs, Beavers, Bacteria: Lessons from Nature. Jakobi and his wife live in rural Allegany County, New York, with three dogs, two cats and a lot of chickens.  Jakobi is an avid gardener, nature photographer, community volunteer, and writes flash fiction and poetry when the muses kiss him on the forehead.

Sittin' On The Steps
​

​ 
When you came home
 from the city
scared
confused
crying,
I offered you
the only thing
I could give you.
And sat with you
on the living room
steps and held
your hand
In silence.

 

An Apology To William Carlos Williams
​

​For many years I looked at
The good doctor's poem
and wondered,
How a few simple words
could be so popular.
So adored.
 
Only sixteen words,
 a single sentence.
A red wheel barrow.
White chickens.
A few raindrops.
 
And I thought, how silly,
how banal,
how insignificant
this poem.
 
At age sixty-four
I finally understand
how much
depends on the everyday
treasures of life.

 

Maidsville, West Virginia
​

​The shale rock reluctantly
yields its treasure.
Blast it! Bulldoze it! Pulverize it!
'til you get the coal.
 
The groan of heavy trucks,
 A narrow country road.
To the river! To the river!
 Load the barges on the
Monongahela.
 
The coal! 
Fossil ferns so long ago
shaped by time and heat,
molded by the
weight of earth above.
 
Up to Pittsburgh! 
Down the Ohio!
To Cairo, Illinois and
The mighty Mississippi.
 
 
But in this brokedown place,
Of old mine shafts,
there is nothing but
the orange color of the
lifeless creek,  
black dust choking the
withered grass, the runted trees,
and the spirit of the people.
 

 

​A SNOWY AFTERNOON

​His axe falls,
logs crackle
and tumble
like bowling pins.
 
Snow building from the west,
huge flakes fall
like so many white
pom-poms cast by the goddess.
 
He looks at the slate-colored sky.
A torrent of memories;
His childhood,
so long ago ‒
sixty years or more.
 
Black construction paper,
The child's paint brush dabbing
huge white snowflakes
and pleached tree limbs
of his imagination.
 
 
Dreaming of a place where
pines and spruce shield him, where
a pincushion of stars and the
night sky swallow him.
 
His dreams lift his young body
 buoyant, soaring,
away, away, from
the dreary fourth floor flat.
 
He was always quiet,
a loner.
How blessed to be here,
Now,
among the pines and spruce,
chopping wood, his tongue
tasting the snowflakes.
Delicious. Ecstatic.