Wordtreasure

Cloud Formations

On simmering summer afternoons,
Mother and I stretched out
on the backyard grass
at our tiny wartime tract house
on Brighton Street
close to the Lockheed plant
and we tried to identify objects
in the clouds.
Those were the years
before smog commandeered the skies
over the L.A. basin.
Cumulus clouds were commonplace.

Mother was good at this.
She would spot some formation
in the clouds,
point it out to me,
and then tell a story.
I marveled at the stories,
but most of the time
I could not see what she saw
and that was a common theme
of our sixty-two years together:
we often did not agree
on what we were looking at,
but she could tell a story
like no one else.

Looking to the West

for Matthew and Ginger

We are looking to the west—to the old Smith Tower
on the left, to tinted office towers on the right,
to the piers and giant cranes of the Port of Seattle,

to whitecaps on Elliott Bay, to seagulls in flight,
to the Puget Sound, and to the Olympic Mountains range.
Breezes are light; the afternoon sun is bright.

We gather on the courthouse roof to turn the page
on the past. A judge with the matinee-idol look
begins to speak. We are present to witness the change.

Decision point: there is no turning back.
Eyes are brimming wet, but voices are strong.
In this moment, old sorrows fade to black.

Where do we go from here? As the old song
explains, We may lose and we may win,
though we will never be here again. We are looking

to the west as the sun declines to the haze horizon.
Where do we go from here? Will all of us hold,
or will our gathering scatter as we grow old?

Those People

The Paleo-Indians, the first Americans,
are checking out the neighborhood.
Woe to mammoths and mastodons.

Life is good in 1491.
Conquistadors from faraway Iberia
claim land for the king of Spain.

Driven away by the Church of England,
Pilgrims, Puritans and Roman Catholics
are free to worship on the eastern shore.

French explorers are moving in
to the river valleys of a vast continent,
all the way north to Labrador.

The Delaware people are pushed aside
as the Dutch build New Amsterdam.
The merchant class is riding high.

Germans create farms and towns,
but refuse to learn the English language.
Ben Franklin is very upset!

Scots-Irish come to America,
gambling on a promise of opportunity.
They travel west to the hills of Appalachia.

The potato famine is forcing the poor
of Ireland to emigrate to the new world.
The Irish are judged as less than human.

Much the same is said of the Italians
who come to America and take employment
that proper Americans will not accept.

Those people are coming ashore.
Those people are moving in.
Life was better before they came.

From the very beginning of colonial life,
captive slaves from out of Africa
power the economy for southern whites
and struggle for equity in the north.
Free at last! They are still despised.

Native Americans are dispossessed,
deprived of their game and forced to move
to plots of land drawn up by whites.
Broken treaties! A trail of tears!
Though first, they are treated as the last.

Seniority on the land matters only
for those Americans with roots in Europe.
To this day, Indians and blacks
are still regarded as those people.

Those people are coming ashore.
Those people are moving in.
Life was better before they came.

Do you really believe that?
Have you forgotten how your own
ancestors were advised to show respect
to those who settled earlier in America?
Remember, there was a time when
your people endured hostility and hate.
Your people were those people.

It is a declaration and a promise:
“All men are created equal.”
Those people are coming ashore.
Those people are moving in.
Welcome: E pluribus unum.
Welcome: out of many, one.

[tanka]

like a stuttering newsreel
from the 40s,
the same events and the same emotions
of joy and disappointment
roll across my mind

Jap

I was born in 1942.
One of the first words I learned
as a small child
was the word Jap.
I heard it ten thousand times
before my fourth birthday,
and when I learned to read
it was in the L.A. Times
every day.
Every day.

This is a Test

Matthew 4:1-11

The verbs to tempt and to test are not the same.
God did not tempt Abraham to sacrifice his one
and only child, Isaac. For it is written,
“After these things God tested Abraham.”
The devil tempted Jesus to turn stones
into bread to prove he is the son of God.
The devil tempted Jesus to leap from the façade
of the temple and force the angels to cushion his bones.
The devil tempted Jesus with his biggest and best
offer: the splendor of earthly kingdoms if he,
in turn, would worship him; Jesus refused.
Temptations bedevil us every hour of every day
as befits our nature, but do not be confused
when the Lord requires your service: This is a test.

Childhood Memories

Memories of my childhood
are hopelessly corrupt.
Facts are elusive.
The core event may stay the same,
protruding like a stone
in a turquoise tidal pool,
but ancillary facts appear,
disappear, reappear,
and shape-shift over time.

Facts are fleeting,
but feelings are forever
and absolutely incorruptible.
Memories are not unlike
the garden-variety dream
where the main takeaway
is not the inscrutable plot,
but the emotion I am feeling
when I awake.

Resilience

Carey, Idaho

The people come and go,
but Carey is used to the churn.
Time is a daunting flow.

Pioneers long ago
let the church run the town.
The people come and go.

Roads and railroads come slow,
and water is a grave concern.
The town withstands the flow.

Some children come to know
they need to leave to learn.
The people come and go.

Others choose to go
on missions and then return.
The town weathers the flow.

Carey continues to grow.
The seasons take their turn
while the people come and go.
The town welcomes the flow.

NOTE: In the 1961-62 school year, I attended Idaho State College on a track scholarship. Sprinter John Briggs, the “Carey Comet,” was a good friend of mine on the team. I got to spend one weekend with his family in Carey, a small Mormon community in southern Idaho. It had about 300 people at the time. Carey still has less than a thousand residents these days. I wrote this villanelle for the prompt “small town.”

The Parable of the Mustard Seed

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52

The kingdom of God began
with a solitary man.

The solitary man
was a tiny seed of one.

Growth began the hour
Jesus revealed his power.

The kingdom of God grew
when Jesus added two.

The kingdom grew some more
when followers numbered four.

There were twelve until the day
a follower fell away.

A handful grew into thousands
and thousands into millions.

Nothing on this earth
is fully formed at birth.

From a tiny seed of one
a mighty tree was born.

We rose from the garden sod:
behold the kingdom of God.

[haiku]

taps…
the widow folds her life
and puts it away

Our Love

Love instantiates. Twain souls
set out: governed by gravity
sliding scraping muscling through

perilous rapids churning white
bending through forests and fields
beneath the bridges of twelve towns

gaining girth and losing speed
adding a tinge of toxic sludge
to a whispering flood a mile wide.

From glacial melt to delta salt,
this is who we are.

NOTE: Nancy and I were married on March 5, 1966. This poem celebrates our 59th. wedding anniversary . We lived in these twelve towns: San Diego, CA; Long Beach, CA; Pocatello, ID; St. Paul, MN; Seattle, WA; Federal Way, WA; Renton, WA; Germantown, MD; Eugene, OR; Veneta, OR; Redmond, WA; Lake Stevens, WA.

Rejection

The same stone which the builders rejected
has become the chief cornerstone.

~Psalm 118

The great American poet was gravely ill.
Confined to home, he was game enough for an interview.
As I was ushered into his august presence,
I noticed letterhead papers taped to the walls
of the rooms, corner to corner from floor to ceiling.
Each was a version of, “Sorry, not for us.”
Of course, I started to laugh, which was the point.
The old man’s voice was soft but clear:
“The rejection letters keep me humble,” he said.
“I often wonder where the editors and publishers—
these gatekeepers—are today with their insights.
The uncharted path is hard to follow at first.
I get that. Sometimes it takes a while
for the world to come around to the unforeseen reality
that a loathed new idea despised by the authorities
will be the conceptual capstone of the coming age.”

Evening, Midnight, Cockcrow, Dawn

Mark 13:35-36

Watchman, wake. Awake and rise!
You must be ready when the master comes.
Don’t let him catch you by surprise

in the evening,
at midnight,
at cockcrow
or at dawn.

Watchman: this charge is yours to keep.
The master comes in a sudden rush.
Don’t let him find you sound asleep

in the evening,
at midnight,
at cockcrow
or at dawn.

Watchman, wake. Open your eyes!
You cannot know the urgent hour,
the hour when the master of the house arrives

in the evening,
at midnight,
at cockcrow
or at dawn.