Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1997)
August evening, and the swallows are hunting the dahlia fields, flying the evening's warm winds upward, feasting on an array of creatures, thrips, western cucumber beetles, green flies, leafhoppers, moths. The grace of the birds in flight is nearly unimaginable WS a magic theater of color, light, and movement, a troupe of aerialiSts mad with the pure joy of flying, circling up from the symmetrical rows of flowers in a living gyre. and yes, I dance with wind and leaves I dance with butterflies and sleep with fog I hear the whispering secrets riding the breeze frogs kiss me and flowers smell me and yes, stars tell me things . ... . . ... . I bathe in dirt and lick moss pumpkins greet me trees keep me weather purifies me is, and yes, rain creates me with crystal drops to my skin and yes, I crave hollow city streets I tease vampires and taunt death I listen to nothing and hear emptiness gargoyles haunt me and poison seduces me and yes; gutter-punks trap me I like to be bit and beaten depression soothes me sludge fascinates me and yes, cement destroys nature, I don't mind In my dreams . I fly with the swallbws. I see beyond the westward hills,' where the sun is setting, its edge still protruding from the great Pacific. — Jim Manuel — ali miller (For my father) The wet sand underneath his feet Remember when we built the deck flows out from under him but he’s quick, ‘mid doubt and disagreement too quick to get caught going down. and finished, both stood back and grinned Light on his feet, he lifts off the shifting surface of the proud, and pleased, and spent sand. Ahead to firmer footing, he makes a game of it, jumps at the last second. Just as the sand" sinks away he We were amazed, the two of us lands in the elusive sand of promise. to find it strong and willing Finally, he-lets his bare feet,settle intojioles filling with icy to hold our weight for ten-plus years water. through winters wet and chilling Back to the ocean, he sinks the small, short-handled shovel Now, nails screech in protest. in front of the slight hole indentation with an intent and crowbars wrest them from their home force that stuns the unsuspecting razor clam. Lumber thumps against the ground One, two, three tiny shovek-fulls of sand fly from the Water- and causes me to moan filled hole. He buries his quick hand up to mid-arm in the ‘numbing water and grabs the fleeing clam Progress holds the sound of pain as it head toward the ocean. The clam loses, he wins. as old makes way for new This time. We begin to build again •I’m readynow, are yoh?,^ There are other indentations with no prize at the bottom of the hole. But slowly ■ . — Anna Phillips slowly the bucket fills with the allotted number of razors. They process theibiicket water: doing much of their own cleaning their pulsating necks stick out from wet, golden shells. & - M ■ He counts and counts again: the number is accurate. Stepping just ahead of his long shadow, he heads across the wide white beach towards the Blue Gull Motel. “Some of the biggest’on the coast,” he’s told at the motel’s crowded cleaning station, A Cheshire smile spreads over his bumished-brown face as ' he dumps the razors into the cleaning sink. r . Excerpt from n "Enter My Dreams, Love" after a ,line by Czeslaw Milosz Ip our slow-growing year, with frost in every month, I left the grass unmowed, let the narrow forage build, moon by moon, watched seedheads form. Refuges are few in this cold light, our history, the close, of sky with low, blue cloud, a storm that wil not stay. Thin flakes hold the air, hide mountains, senseless, repetitious power. He precisely severs the shell from the tender white meat and lays them open with his scissors. — Jean Marshall Writers' Club Award Ceremony Tuesday, May 13 from 2-4 p.m. in CC 127 Poet C.W. Rawlins Poetry Reading 11 a.m. Skylight Dining Room* Free event Open to the public Call Diane Averill at ext. 2370 for informa-
