Jason Ryberg

Surplus

Here’s the news, brothers
and sisters! The first few seeds
of rain have been o-

fficially cast and
sewn into the wind this fine
evening. And now

the rain is in my
face, my words and in my wine.
But you’ll find no fine

crystal chalice or
be-jeweled goblet, here, just
this here jelly jar

decorated with
dancing, cavorting, and leap-
frogging dinosaurs.

But, it will serve the
spirits of the moment as
appropriately

as anything; this
impromptu consecration,
this suddenly and

ceremonious
mingling of potentially
volatile, vital

ingredients (some
very strong hoodoo, yessir):
rainwater, wine and

lightning, plus the fine,
red, wind-sifted soil and dust
of Oklahoma,

lifted and carried
across the state line as the
sun has just gone down,

upon the rolling,
billowing waves of a dark,
wandering weather-

front, which has just now
released the surplus of its
beautiful sadness.

Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box full of folders, notebooks and scraps of paper that could one day be (loosely) construed as a novel, and, a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is The Great American Pyramid Scheme (co-authored with W.E. Leathem, Tim Tarkelly and Mack Thorn, OAC Books, 2022). He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO with a rooster named Little Red and a billygoat named Giuseppe and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks, near the Gasconade River, where there are also many strange and wonderful woodland critters.