Everett Poetry Nite, June 2, 2025
Kathy Fiscus
It was just after we purchased a 13-inch TV.
My baby sister was one month old.
Six miles away to the east
on the land that would become
the football field and quarter-mile track
of my future high school,
a little girl fell 100 feet down
an abandoned water well.
Starting that Friday night,
KTLA News at 10 began
non-stop coverage from the scene.
It was a major first in television news.
Someone in the family,
either Mother or Granny,
suggested I pray for Kathy Fiscus.
Following the example of children
in the old movies,
I got down on my knees at bedside
and prayed for her.
KTLA announced on Sunday
that Kathy Fiscus was dead.
She died for lack of air.
I was surprised she was not rescued.
After all, I asked God to help.
God chose not to intervene.
I found that troubling.
From 1957 to 1960, I never missed
a San Marino home football game.
We had good teams and times were exciting,
and it wasn’t until many years later
I was reminded all those games
and all my track meets
took place where Kathy Fiscus died.
San Marino
Professional lawns, exquisite flowers, houses
out of Sunset illumined quiet wealth.
Money was mostly new, but tastefully displayed.
Professional men sipped cocktails with their wives,
quietly, of course, when business deals were done.
The tone was English. Along with Germanic cousins,
British surnames slept on English streets.
Italians, Greeks, and Jews were borderline.
A fleet of Japanese gardeners broke a sweat
in sunny yards. The trash was quietly hauled
each week by courteous men in coveralls.
After school, perspiring maids in uniforms
white or blue would queue for buses along
the Drive to ride a rumbling ashtray home.
The nights were deathly quiet. We never saw
the underclass at dark. Invisible deeds,
professionally drawn by cordial men, kept
our slumber safe, our world a safe cocoon.
Depression-haunted parents pampered us
into the sixties. The gaunt face of poverty
that fueled their fears was one we never knew.
Our class of 1960 naturally believed
in privileged wealth, believed in dread pursuits
of Dry-As-Dust at top professional schools.
Our dreams were so intense before the dawn,
before the day enhanced our consciousness.
From out of the comfortable night we faced the sun.
At long last we were forced to cope with light.
Class of 1960
We meet again, halfway to the sea;
we touch again, halfway from the snow.
Our disentangled lives have floated free
through range and farm and city far below,
and far away from home. We floated free
within the groove of the river’s quiet flow.
Our lives are channeled—this we clearly see;
our cut of land determines where we go;
but how we go is up to you and me.
Entangled as we are again tonight,
salute the past, then say a last good-bye.
Remember me as I appear tonight
and I’ll remember you with an inward eye
until the whispering river meets the sea.
Everett Poetry Nite, May 26, 2025: Memorial Day
NOTE: See the Published section for the text of the following poems.
Operations Hastings
Den Mother
Everett Poetry Nite, May 19, 2025
The Grafting of a Nation
Those People
Everett Poetry Nite, May 5, 2025
Skywaves
Bus Poem: Hard Times
St. John’s Art Night, May 2025
Without a Thought
Skywaves
Bus Poem: Hard Times
My Son Keeps Getting Fired
Beyond the Narrowing
Everett Poetry Nite, April 28, 2025
The Alpha and Omega of Gratitude
Camp Loowit Alumni
Everett Poetry Nite, April 21, 2025
Without a Thought
Rejection
Everett Poetry Nite, April 14, 2025
Childhood Memories
Memory
She Loves You
Everett Poetry Nite, April 7, 2025
The Politics of No
The Swans of Skagit Valley
Art Night, April 2025
The Drifters
Love in a Twofer
Owl Love
As a Rose Unfolds Itself
Baldwin Power & Light
Our Love
Everett Poetry Nite, March 31, 2025
My Moment in Time
We All Start at Zero
For the Faces I Will Never See
Owl Love
Art Night, March 2025
The Way
1066
High Jumper
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
Art Night, February 2025
Beatitudes (Updated)
Disinformation
The Plumb Line
You Trample on the Needy
Art Night, January 2025
Residents Only
Oberlin College
White Privilege High School
Class of 1960
Art Night, December 2024
Those People
America in Decline
Art Night, November 2024
?
Art Night, October 2024
?
Art Night, September 2024
?
Art Night, August 2025
Morven letters: non fiction
Art Night, July 2024
The Drifters
Summer Romance
As a Rose Unfolds Itself
Looking to the West
Arise, My Love
To His Coy Mistress
Art Night, June 2024
Agency
I Was the Messenger
Lao Tzu Advises the Board of Directors
Our Corporate Wholeness
Into the Winter
Art Night, May 2024
I Want to be Like that Guy
Checkpoint
Feeling Valued
Wedding in the Park
Life Begins at 70
Art Night, March 2024
(haiku and tanka)
Art Night, February 2024
At the Dinner Table
Back Jackknife
Glass Half Empty
Visiting the Oncologist
Art Night, January 2024: Songs
Circle of Love
Ark of the Covenant
The Yoke
He Called a Little Child
Art Night, December 2023
Childhood Memories
Memory
First Date
Cigars
Perfume
On Mount Wilson
Art Night, November 2023
The Swans of Skagit Valley
Camp Loowit Alumni
The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector
The Parable of the Rich Fool
The Alpha and Omega of Gratitude
Art Night, October 2023
My Iranian Gentleman
Rejection
Chapel of the Transfiguration
We All Start at Zero
The Faces I Will Never See
Art Night, August 2023
Kenjiro Nomura, Artist
The Word Jap
The Recovering Racist
The Grafting of a Nation
Imago Dei
The Ideal Starting Lineup
Art Night, July 2023
The Body and Its Desires
The Politics of No
The Big Nothing
Come Together
Owl Love
Art Night, June 2023
(Read by Jim O’Grady)
Parable of the Wineskins
My Moment in Time