Chapter 5: PLACE
"I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself." Maya Angelou
Drifting Into A Caribbean Lagoon
juicy yellow mango
richness
of ripe papaya
bursting
pomegranate orbs
banana
daiquiri
bougainvillea bloom
passionflower
perfume
full moon
refracting on
the breakers
all
pack
perfection
close
Sheryl L. Nelms
Karin Batten, Hello World, acrylic, pumice, dye, charcoal, black magma and glue
Watermelon Festival
we went
in July
to Knox City, Texas
to dance
in the sun
to see
the 50’s
classic cars
to eat
iced
circles
of red
watermelon
Sheryl L. Nelms
OCEAN BEACH
Pants rolled up, holding hands
obedient to the fog shrouded signs
that cautioned no swimming allowed
dangerous-undertow
one day, years ago, at Ocean Beach
we rinsed sand-encrusted toes
in choppy metal-green foam
hopped from foot to foot
as catching the hem of a wave
one of us fell, pulling the other down
laughing, pulling the other up, laughing
unconcerned with how miles out to sea
one perfect rogue wave swelled, waited
we noticed only the cold currents
that swirled around our ankles
dragged sand from under our feet
sucked it rapidly back to sea.
Eileen Malone
Elizabeth Hack, Radiance Green, Mixed media on panel
Moment at the Beach
Along the Pacific's edge … she walks
As only a dancer might … light
With steps … not footfalls
The wet sand
Going underfoot … loses its reflective sheen …
After … the imprints fill
Footprints of colored sky
Here the wind is sweeter than anything
And time
Holds its breath
For a small wish
A drawing in the sand
Or a moment gazing into one another's eyes
And she goes about … while I look on
As sad memories segue
Unseen … yet …
Between steady heartbeats … I am still … for her
Out there she steps and turns
Laughing
Dances into sun bright - silver white
And … for some kind of a moment
She is wholly lost in brilliance …
She calls
From that far … far place
In the waters
I walk then … into light … vast, vast
Where hand in hand,
We enter the radiant sea …
And touch … this world!
Dan Brady
Born again
An April baby, I bloom as spring stirs.
I sense supple limbs beneath moist earth
nature roused from brown dreams, shaking
stiffness from blowsy hair, a shudder of leaves
in blithe confusion as she wakes.
She whips her clouds into creamy mounds,
sprinkles them with rains she wraps herself
gauzy veils that lie in folds on a thirsty earth
Janet Butler
Peachtree St.
the lemon-yellow sunlight
on the great thoroughfare
not even yellow
nor yet pink
but as it were a sea of trees
the odd railroad station
newspaper
department store
old Terminus
Christopher Mulrooney
Nathalie Fabri, Yellow Noe, Acrylic
City Fox ©pmh; 11.28.12 P
In knee deep November snow
plush pelted still
early season hunger rises
on hind legs. Narrow face noses
bent boughs of backyard crab
apple. Harvested now
bottles of drunken cheeky baubles blink
in dim lit root cellar. A hint
of perfume lingers. Somewhere some
how one last apple
waits.
Patrice Haan
1620 LeRoy
Rented Berkeley house of late childhood -
blue Chinese rug, piano and bay window,
bookish; square meals and standards,
visits to lecture hall and Planetarium,
wafted campanile chimes at eight and twelve and six...
the self that lived there, expanded and ossified,
now mines the ravines of memory for their configuration,
hovers wistfully over those younger parents
(how proud they almost were
of our envisioned illuminated lifescripts,
later reduced to black and white with discreet spangles.)
But under sediments, the boys and girl live on.
Autumn on top of spring
would push alternative plots to pages written;
would dredge bland hours for elusive meaning,
when they were but the compost
nurturing dreams which even today
writhe upward toward expression.
Lark Burns de Beltran
Audrey Anastasi, Swing, Mixed media on paper
Once Upon A Time
An old mansion posed high
on San Francisco’s Lombard St.
right where the curves begin.
Our friend, cousin of
the widowed owner,
took to caring for her kin.
Come meet my cousin;
see the place, she said.
Honoring the occasion
we dressed in our best:
my husband, me, four kids.
We planted a ‘don’t touch’ in their heads.
Hard to remember in that room
shelved with boxes, bursting with
old fashioned Christmas ornaments
and figurines, enough to portray a town
and a mirror pond of skaters
beneath the Christmas tree.
Another full of opened gifts
still in their tissued boxes.
When offered, I chose a China butter dish
domed and edged with gold.
A picture of us posing
on a fancy settee is all that’s left.
Time has razed the mansion
for closet apartments
and shattered peaceful ways.
Cherise Wyneken
IN THE HANDS OF CHILDREN
Time is but a toy in the hands of children,
something to play with and let drop
while reaching for a red and yellow
gismo that belches greetings from dreamland;
let grown-ups pick it up from
the floor or track it down below the stairs
and bring it back to the shelf or tack it
to the refrigerator;
anxious grownup faces are tied
with invisible twine into undelivered
packages while they watch
children’s unwrapped,
naked squeals of pure existence ---
never will children weave hours
into strings and twine,
they know that time is a toy to take
apart --
the tower they build from its
unruly pieces will have tons of fun
just tumbling down.
Paul Sohar
JAPANESE TEA GARDEN
(San Francisco)
We order jasmine tea.
A kimono-clad server offers:
"Jasmine fields imbue tea leaves
grown beside them." Inhaling
we sip the steaming fragrance,
gaze upon water-lily pools,
arched bridges, a red pagoda,
mossy lawns, bonsai trees.
We ponder the huge stone Buddha
who holds in left palm
a lotus blossom --
the large enhancing the small.
We vow to remain open to all
the jasmine fields of our lives,
to cross bridges slowly,
drop pond-pebbles gently,
to mingle with crowds
yet steep our own essence.
Claire J. Baker
Pam Borrelli, Stow Lake Reflection, Photograph
We Were Hours
In hours of day and night
we were gestures of our becoming
we were nature’s hints of distant music
we were hands reaching out beneath quiet thunder
we were slight rhythms working ordinary tasks
we engaged fingers and muscles and bones.
We were what pulled us in;
we were whispered by risking promise
we danced beneath moonlight’s shared midnight
we were lost in cadences of movement
we touched the gifts of belonging
we fled our momentary doubts
we escaped long engagements
we had no explanations, we
moved; we simply were.
Vince Storti
ISLAND OF MEMORY
Before the grand mass structures rose, and still
we walked to place our golden footsteps in the moist quiet air
and left them there, piled invisibly beneath boney steel bridges, on avenues
of sand, in the dawn light or heated sky, hearing moaning ships
atop one another step by step, and inside ourselves to rest the music
sniffing scents of salt and coffee, simple fare of sea and chili pepper
those islands over there to which hearts fly in history
mighty industry and snakes of stoney paths link native tribes to all
the loves once known and kept or lost near inland lakes and homes
great movements seeking art or change to spare and save
vast families of all and every kind or name reside in alphabets
on peninsulas and waterways sleeping to the continental edge
of promise and no further west to stride, our invisible sparks ignite
a sacred place only those who know, know and care,
building it in beats of hearts one at a time anew, soldiers, sailors,
the unique sanctity of our Bay, where choices simply made or urged
have led to solemn joyous tranquility, sometimes dreams, and sorrow
more possible here than there, it always seems and is, to us our home
embraced by garden pools and towering redwood vines, writhing life,
our hands touched, our hopes were birthed and fought, but
grow through the soul of those who stay and born become
its not forgettable legacy of faces, voices, echoed in timelessness
Michael S. Bell (San Francisco 1971-1993)
Lena Levin, Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought…
(after William Shakespeare), Oil, canvas