ORISON FOR SALMON
They’re everywhere, they’re us, plentiful
benevolent, fragile, driven, languid in fall
when mothers prepare reds for eggs while
males waltz alone in river shallows waiting
for her to finish nesting in gravel beside
crumbling banks before laying pink pearl
clusters of life in murky folds then fining
away to founder, expire, while he stays
close, floats over the nursery trailing life
milk across the piscatorial nest adorning
the future, preparing the Yuba River for
another golden run, another dance, another
time glittering before us, for everywhere
a fragile plentitude a forever and ever gift.
Amen.
They’re everywhere, they’re us, plentiful
benevolent, fragile, driven, languid in fall
when mothers prepare reds for eggs while
males waltz alone in river shallows waiting
for her to finish nesting in gravel beside
crumbling banks before laying pink pearl
clusters of life in murky folds then fining
away to founder, expire, while he stays
close, floats over the nursery trailing life
milk across the piscatorial nest adorning
the future, preparing the Yuba River for
another golden run, another dance, another
time glittering before us, for everywhere
a fragile plentitude a forever and ever gift.
Amen.
BURNT SUGAR
This morning as I settled under the lemon
tree, I fell in love with the song of a strange
bird that flitted from towering redwood
to squat quince where it sang leaf-cloaked
against neighbor’s prying eyes and feral
cats lurking in the shadows of a fall morning,
too warm for a shawl, I fell for a musician still
at his after-hours horn and later we played,
listened to birdsong, shared pancake kisses
with maple syrup drizzled over layers, sliding
into the best kind of love, I thought,
without price, without gifts or suspicious
words or yammering of mundane details,
this pure love of a lemon and a hot quince
blossoming, puckering lips to mouthpiece
blowing, no huffiness, just a blue note every
now and then, with a whiff of burnt syrup.
RIFFRAFF
In night shadows the city does
its business carrying on with clash
and clamor while lost and lonely
specters huddle in blankets beside
castaway foam in a sea of bent
boxes and carryout containers
vessels for riffraff, bubble-wrapped
spirits blithely discarded easily bagged
and boxed then neatly folded and
the men, the men dress in yellow
reflectors and yank wires connected
to the city's heart to our bones
to our fiber to our optics to our
broken nails clawing toward sunrise.
RIPENING PERSIMMONS
Gently squeeze to see
if fruit yields, using a firmly
placed thumb. Astringent
types are yielding when ripe.
Non-astringent varieties
go either way, but in fall
note size and color of each
exotic piece, orange and plump.
Place in brown paper
bag with an off-gassing banana,
crumple or nestle together
in a deeply rounded bowl
for a couple of days and long
nights, nesting, entwined. Eat
strawberries while you wait,
sip champagne, embrace, then
slip into my luscious sweetness.
Note: Scientists in California and Japan have discovered how persimmons trees have sex. Male trees code for a very small piece of RNA that acts as “molecular scissors,” cutting down gene expression to create a female tree. But, the experts say RNA scissors can be “fickle,” and this may help explain why “dioecious” plants that are genetically one sex can also function as another.
Many thanks to Sacramento's Kate Campbell today for her fine poems and pix! Kate can be reached at kcamp300@yahoo.com or her blog (kate-campbell.blogspot.com) or her Author Page: www.amazon.com/author/katecampbell
A couple of notes:
Today is the deadline for the annual Jack Kerouac Poetry Contest. Send maximum of 3 poems (6 pages) to jackkerouaccontest@gmail.com plus page w/name, phone, address, email. See also The Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize Revelation Ceremony and Reading on Facebook at www.facebook.com/events/1634885206791605/. Winners will be announced Oct. 16 (8pm) at the Jazz Beat Conference at The John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., Davis; winners will be expected to attend and read their poems. Judge: Dr. Andy Jones. Prizes of $150, $75, $25 plus honorable mentions and publication.
And poet/publisher J.D. Hart, who was featured on Medusa’s Kitchen this past Wednesday, encourages submissions to his various sites, including:
stonefacelitpage.blogspot.com
gossamerpoems.blogspot.com
lunaticlitpage.blogspot.com
creeksidelit.blogspot.com
lunarlit.blogspot.com
imaginaryconversationslit.blogspot.com
gossamerpoems.blogspot.com
lunaticlitpage.blogspot.com
creeksidelit.blogspot.com
lunarlit.blogspot.com
imaginaryconversationslit.blogspot.com
_______________________
Today’s LittleNip:
COB AND PEN
—Kate Campbell
COB AND PEN
—Kate Campbell
Swans as summer wanes
sense chill and know by
feel the flight to come
know cygnets have fledged
know migration begins warm
as velvet then slips into icy
asides while wings entwine,
necks arch when trumpeters
call us to wander.
________________________
—Medusa
