Posted: May 22, 08 1:24pm
This is a poem I wrote a couple years ago while sitting in a neighborhood cafe and watching the play of afternoon light on a row of trees across the street. What remains remarkable for me is the power of that vision to send me hurtling back through time, and to provoke such an immediate need to record the memories, the thoughts.
I was consciously using repetition in this piece.
I know this poem is clumsy but I can't get enough distance on it to make substantial revisions.
And so I seek your advice.
(I've separated the stanzas with indicators.)
SAN JOAQUIN SUMMERS
Hot lemon yellow light
San Joaquin summers
central valley summers
alley tar melts beneath the freight of midday sun
hot black mush beneath our feet
running fast full out like thieves
from one tree to the next
gorging on fat fruit
pomegranates, peaches,
apricots and figs
our small sunbrown faces
smeared sticky-sweet with juice
dodging dragonflies and bees
mouths full of laughter
ears with insect buzz.
~~~~~
Playing cards flap from bicycle spokes
clipped with wooden clothespins
nipped from their canvas sack
behind our mother’s back
we race down boiling sidewalks
shrieking at the sound
of the snarling snapping cards.
~~~~~
Hot lemon yellow light
Fresno summers
gnarled branches droop with figs
grapes pucker into raisins
a small town trying to grow up
nestled in the farmlands
a small safe town, unlocked doors
children out to play, unguarded.
~~~~~
Sprinklers chit chit chit in arcs across the lawns
backyard patios
neat cement squares wet
clear pools of water disappearing in the heat
green garden hoses coiled
early sun sparking on droplets
in the softly ticking nozzles.
~~~~~
Morning lawns twitch with small brown birds
reaping reckless earthworms sleepy with the heat
beaks parting blades of grass
popping through the dirt
feasting on the wriggling lengths.
~~~~~
Hot lemon colored light
I still see it, remembering
in this bristling city where I live
we are elbow to elbow here
face to face
it is not a safe place
children play fenced inside of tiny squares of green
mothers on the sidelines
watchful,
wary.
~~~~~
Hot lemon colored light
early one evening
I watched through a café window
as that same light sparked
for a moment
that valley light
from the undersides of leaves
on a sidewalk row of trees
it made the air look hot,
that light
tossed like diamonds in the green
that light
that hot summer light.
~~~~~
I imagined it.
And was startled when the city’s chill
raised bumps along my arms
saddened as the feathers of early evening fog
blew swiftly up the street
blowing out the light
the undersides of leaves
blinked out one by one,
tamping out the light
that for a moment had set me squarely back in time
in a valley ripe with fruit
in a small safe town
steaming summer lawns
bony bare feet black with tar
belly tight with stolen fruit
laughter
in the light, in summer
in the lemon yellow light.
