From soul to paper: The Tribune continues celebration of National Poetry Month

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Celebrating Easter morning, with our second Sunday of poems observing April as National Poetry Month, is a special delight. Many of us have watched children racing this way and that across the green grasses of county parks in their hunt for Easter eggs.

In the same way, poets often search for the next line, tracking in many directions. The admired and loved Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, in her response to receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, noted that inspired people find their work an ongoing adventure. She stated, “Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know.’ ”

Like children pursuing treasures, the poets presented here strike out on varied paths. Suffering is acknowledged in “support of my comrades lifts my body” and “his wounded heart bleeds across western skies.” But rainfall and spring are honored, also, in “tying interlacing threads with shreds of laughter,” to “birth’s triumphdancing naked in the wind.”

We invite you to the Easter Poetry Party. Join the hunt!

— Bonnie Young, San Luis Obispo poet laureate

AT ONE

Cal Wilvert, San Luis Obispo

I lay on the carpet

to appease an aching spine

Silently she approached

and on her back snuggled beside me

My pain receded

with each breath in unison

As I rubbed her belly she moaned for more

When my attention paled

she nudged my cheek with her paw

FOREVER

C. Gordon Thomas, Morro Bay

It is evening

The quiet comfort of invisibility

is everywhere as the darkness

reaches out in its softness.

Then streaks of red and gold

race across the heavens as the

first glimmerings of dawn appear.

Only the chirping of birds

carefully feeding the young mouths

breaks the silence.

It is dawn.

The cool mist of the night has lain

a gentle carpet of dew

upon the fields.

The fragrance from the sweet scent

of wet grass

lies heavily in the air

The leaves rustle in the fresh

early morning breeze

as the rising sun

warms my soul.

FIRE FOLLOWERS

Michael J. O’Brien, Nipomo

Three days after a doc dug melanoma out of his shoulder,

he called me to hike with him to Bear Paw Cave,

an easy mile along the Manzana but then three steep ones

to the ridge-tops on a hot trail swarming with deer flies.

Yet I had no reason to question why, our old men’s love

for hiking the mountains unspoken. At the burn area

he took photos of bright wildflowers

growing out of charred soil. Later, as we

shinnied our way up the rock face to the cave,

him favoring his healed shoulder, me boosting his butt

from below, I saw the images of bear paws and

antlered animals, the red scorpion painted

beneath a black roof dotted with patterns of white,

constellations, maybe, as seen a thousand years ago,

another reason for him to show me this holy place,

of wildflowers that follow fire

and quail calling out to one another,

watching their young.

TEMPEST

Beverly Boyd, Los Osos

The looming storm descends

but a solitary starling lifts off,

a determined shuttle pulling hard

the wind’s invisible weft

to penetrate a wet gray warp

of steely threads tightly strung,

impenetrable almost —

iridescent feathers and avian bones

struggling to weave their way

through the torrent’s ruthless frame

creating not a protective mantle

but a textured map

to a place beyond

the watcher’s eye where

shimmer purple, green

in rainbow mist

like the starling’s song.

BEER GODDESS

Joe Amaral, Grover Beach

Her eyes simmer crystals

Frothy bubbles

Her body a slender alder tree

Full and hearty

Her hair flows golden wheat

Shimmering cascades

Her skin the sun’s own gaze

Gluey caramel love

Her arms sea glass smooth

Tender breeze touches

Her legs porcelain waterslides

Gentle curvature

A bill, a tip, a final adieu

Remembrance in that last sip

Her aftertaste

Imagined kisses

THROUGH THE COSMIC MIST

Ivan BrownOtter, Cayucos

My eyes are the eyes of an emerging dream

in a room-temperature massage of rain.

As Neptune’s trident lifts the Equator,

I awake under a new set of stars.

I see a Galapagos iguana

through an Ecuadorian mist and a

shimmering ghost-green of southern lights

sweeping a slow curve of sky.

I’m no longer myself,

rather a creature from the Milky Way

swimming in an atmospheric sea

where everything weighs the same.

If there’s a God out there,

She surely lives in the Great Nebula

winking through the cosmic mist

beyond a net of blushing blue stars.

DAY LABORER

KH Solomon,

Morro Bay

Up

from darkness

he comes,

crossing

with dawn’s

first rays.

His toil

goes

unnoticed

until,

sent back

again, his

wounded heart

bleeds

across western skies.

SPRING AGAIN

Marvin Sosna, Morro Bay

Waves of mustard, a seascape

on land turned brazen yellow

in the flush of winter’s rain

that brings life back to the hills

parched by endless drought.

Not endless, only almost so,

months without more than dew,

the slopes clad in khaki, then

draped in the lifeless gray that

wraps Egypt’s mummified dead.

Then rain. The benign La Niña

or her tempestuous brother, the

stormy El Niño, and the earth

opening its throat and feeding

seeds from last year’s crop

that gorge themselves, become

swollen and burst open, send towers,

stalks and blossoms to the sun,

a shout of birth’s triumphs and glory

dancing naked in the wind.

STUFF

Diane Johnson, Paso Robles

When I die, it will take sixteen men

To put me down in my grave;

And that’s because I refuse to go

Without all the great stuff I save.

One man will take all the old keys

To fit locks I one day may find,

Along with watches, left in a drawer,

That are tarnished and no longer wind.

One will take from the back of my closet

All the clothes I’ve long since outgrown,

While someone else takes instruction books

From appliances I no longer own.

Someone will take the weird little tools,

I could use if I knew what they’re for.

Another will take all the loose change

I’ve thrown in a pocket or drawer.

There’s a lot more stuff I haven’t yet named

That the sixteen men need to haul,

But if they don’t take all my stuff to my grave

— then I’ll refuse to die after all.

I IMAGINE

Robert Wirtz, Pismo Beach

Rippling, tricking, cool and clear

you’re music to the forest’s ear.

From dew’s first drops, to snow’s demise

your veins feed earth so it survives.

Ever changing, on the move

while seeking out a thirst to soothe.

You bring forth life with each small drop

when passing through, almost non-stop.

And now the oceans call aloud,

so hurry back and mist to a cloud.

Then gather strength and drench the air

to cleanse and feed earth’s outer wear.

The circle’s complete, the cycles go on

ever since the light of first dawn.

How many journeys do you have left?

Long after man has breathed his last breath

I imagine.

SLOW AWAKENING

Audrey Hooper, Atascadero

Night Mare, in another unwelcome visit,

gallops through my dreams,

heavy hoof prints on my sleeping heart.

Black Beauty run amok

Mind, a drowning scuba diver, claws

at weightless waves, bursts toward the

muddy dawn, surfaces with water-logged

body not far behind.

Bare toes touch cool floor, faux wood

like packed sand. Feet carry their

sleepy, sleepless burden down

the barren hall, stop at study door.

Shadow light draws eyes

toward the floor,

a puddle of obsidian

staining the cloudy carpet.

Ancient black dog lost

in dreamless sleep, a wooly

blanket wrapped around my

awakened heart.

TAPESTRY

Mary Kleeman, San Luis Obispo

Conversations drift as rain falls

softly against the window pane.

Words weave the finest yarn as

colorful tales pass back and forth.

Accented tones heighten a point of view.

Then border on with acquiescent hues,

tying interlacing threads with shreds of laughter.

Knits and knots segue altering the design,

leaving loose ends in the fabric of chatter.

FALLEN

Shannon Sutherland-Jackson, Cambria

smoke fills my nose

blood floods my eyes

cracks bombard my ears

rain soaks my bones

warmth of home penetrates my thoughts

love touches my cheek

support of my comrades lifts my body

strength of the stretcher holds me strong

steel penetrates my flesh

pulsing shatters my conscience

wind flutters my bandage

flies irritate my core

world falls below me

earth opens wide

sounds fade slowly

light fills my soul

UNTITLED

Frank Fiedler, Morro Bay

We’re one big family

but everyone is different

so count your blessings

TIME IN THIS PLACE

Rebecca Lee Adams, Cayucos

Time is slowing down for me, here,

Not a moment too soon.

In this place, there is cadence.

There is rhythm measured to the earth’s turn,

Marked by the tiniest of creatures:

A cricket, whose snare drum song is sixteen miniscule beats to a measure,

A hummingbird, whose hum is not a song but a

Million transparencies of air, sliced;

Each wing serves up fractions of time like delicacies to an awaiting tongue,

In a meal of courses that will last forever.

Here, the sturdy desk clocks, sensible and unobtrusive,

Keeps the reasonable time I used to know.

A minute is a minute, if not more

(An hour of very long minutes is the child’s life)

And moments, now, are savored fully, like comfort food.

I tap my foot to the crickets’ march

And taste the air around the hummingbird.

I set my watch to the rhythm of the earth

And rejoice with the cadence of my heart,

In this place, restored.

IT ISN’T AS THOUGH THE EVENING WERE NOT ENOUGH

Ed Valentine, San Luis Obispo

It isn’t as though the evening were not enough,

Colors complex and descending

Mixed with daylight

And darkness

Into earth.

Or as though I felt no gratitude

For time or breath

Mine and the world’s

Meeting between eye

And sky.

Still a quality there was

Drawn fine in the shading

Of the failing light

That carried the faintest tone

Of loss,

A change from morning

Brilliant and ascending

To the subtle evening

Not complete but closing—

Lovely not for what’s ahead

But in the trailings of things behind.

SIMPLE GIFTS

Monalisa Maione, Grover Beach

This very morning,

narcissus blossoms in a vase,

beside the abridged tales of our culture.

Scent of the blossom

drew us near to notice

the fine white petals.

All it had to offer was there,

a simple, singular gift.

A tiny word

to right

all inequities,

child.

This story was originally published April 8, 2012 at 12:01 AM with the headline "From soul to paper: The Tribune continues celebration of National Poetry Month."