PAGE 9
north coast TIMES EAGLE, JAN/FEBRUARY2003
IT'S A DOG'S LIFE
I heard it on the radio
That America s unhappy dogs
Respond well to Prozac
We could teach our kids to beg
Before they can watch TV.
An animal trainer said
That guard dogs kill their owners
More often than strangers
Should we keep our children in cages
To protect them?
I read in the paper
That "Americans spend more on pets
Than they do on books."
We could send criminals to obedience class
To reform them.
In the crime reports
They call police dogs "Canine Officers.”
If we call our teachers
“Education Officers”
Can we get them more funding?
HANK GREELMAN, PORTRAIT OF HIS FATHER CRAIG (2003)
POETRY
WHERE WATER BEGINS
For MeiLi at 20 months
Washing hands with water
from the Bear Creek drainage,
water stored in the city's reservoirs and let go,
water heated by the power of water
tumbling through turbines at Bonneville,The Dalles,
water swirling into the drain and on down
to the sewer, the treatment ponds, the river, the sea.
You've learned how water pours forth from faucets,
falls as far as it can, finds the low point, and spreads out,
how it takes on the shape of what holds it,
touches it, moves through it.
We turn our hands in the water
and I wonder, “Where does water begin?"
Is it where clouds let go their load of rain?
Is it at the fast fading edge of ferry's wake?
Is it the cornice of snow on the ridge line?
Is it where frost begins to hone a grass blade?
Is it your first sip from a cup?
Is it where tears form in your eye?
Is it where they dry to salt on your face?
A WARM GUN
I am a woman
who on occasion
contemplates murder
today asking
a clerk in a department store
if she sold guns
ones which fire with grace
the bullet moves
like a paper airplane
and enters his flesh
serenely, no blood
just a small hole
and a slow wave
going out from around it
as if it could be sleep
but it isn’t.
(S
AS I MOl/RN MEN
How many dead,
too soon returned
to earth, to air,
Must it be the fate of women
to live thus in memory,
racked with loss after loss,
warmed but unsatisfied
by the breathy goodnight kiss
of children, however dear?
A VILLAGE AGE
-JIM DOTT
where the circle is broken
the woman must smile at death
and her mortal voice woo its window
-JUDITH GRIFFIS
SALTY CLOUDS
I wish I had a girl so dark
that the sea would call me friend
like in my good old days
of youthful power and natural ways
the mighty wave did lift heaven’s light
through the waters love I oft times played
surfing with no board and having fun
the laughing sun roaring overhead
this girl I want will lift the fates
and give me strength to carry my songs
to stranger folk so they can freak, be proud and laugh with me
for I am blessing the heavenly fates to help me search for this mate
maybe a child to love this world as I to carry creation child
this thing that willeth I
me hopeth little sorrow carry
dream catchers tarry advise the moon
and bring this girl for me to carry
-CHRISTOPHER KRAEMER
I saw it on TV
That pet care is
“A big consumer item.”
We could put a tax on dog shampoo
To pay for homeless shelters.
They say
“The dogs of war are loosed”
Because dogs never stop chasing
Until they have cornered their prey
Just like our government....
-PETER MARSH
while I still see
and hear and dance
without their arms about me
or their mouths hot on mine.
But water is not like a story, a journey, a day,
where you can say, “Here it starts."
-JUANITA HUEBNER
It is always welling up, flowing through and away,
starting over, stopping, passing by again:
The wide brown Yangtse sweeping slowly under the bridge
between Turtle Hill and Snake Hill at Wuhan.
Flesh never learns to say goodbye.
The Columbia that slips and slams over the bar.
The ocean that was between us.
-ELIZABETH HOBBS
The heavy haze over Hubei the day we got you.
The barely cool breeze off of East Lake.
The morning rain steaming up from the hotel steps.
The shush and blur of the waterfall in the White Swan lobby.
The droplets split and sprayed off the wing’s edge as we took off for home.
The hose dribbling water over your toes and down the walk,
as you filled and emptied a bucket again and again.
The water slipping off our fingers, our palms as we rinsed them.
Storms that pass
The gutter outside the window spilling over with hard falling rain.
Taking you along
My own sudden tears as you step off your stool
You
alone
with escaping hills
and put a towel in my dripping hands.
Here is where water begins.
I heard an expert say
That the American dog
Eats better than a third world peasant.
Should we send the starving kibble
To end world hunger?
The clouds becoming feelings.
The small lines of life
Looking to towering faces
Appearing and disappearing,
Chimes roaming all outdoors
Holding encounters.
White fawn lips passing through family pines
The shape of locked arms whispering into deaf ears
Rain
Moving over oblivion
With swirling gray brush marks,
Sketching as it calls
Upon touch.
Souls touching
Trapped in a village age
ROBERT LEGG
FOR MR. PARKER
What are you saying to me
Charlie, you sound so sad
as you nibble at my ears,
after laying down
long stemmed roses
at my feet
That’s just you isn't it Charlie
Your joy mingles with your sad,
and mine too
You float around this still,
sunny room, like a lazy tear,
suspended in the juiciest pulse
of alive
-THEDA SPRACKLIN
Sticks & stones may break my bones
But never my brain
-LILY DEUFEL (AGE 7)
IN YOUR WHISPER
your mind, a blood red amaryllis
has torn each petal from its only blossom
leaving only a chaste stalk
and that too illusion
spread deep beneath the pulp of roots
how trivial,
your beauty seems now, an untimely ghost
hovering over the veil of your lips
in your whisper vixens once danced bareback
falling from rooftops like suicidal angels
and I caught them
now, the crook of your voice lies flat in my palm
a chord of rosemary
curling like a requiem
around the soft shadows that cradle memory
how obscene the passage of time
when the mind and body have parted
I wonder if your life has spun out before you
if all this time you have paced back and forth
along a single unkempt memory
and trying to recall have lost your way
along the polished halls that
reflect like circus mirrors
or perhaps a lapse in heart
has hinged upon a single day
and swung out like a door
inviting you to follow the life you almost led
and now lead inside your head
a new family raised in the space of dreams
children all of them with violet eyes
that follow their children around the dining room table
and in the center a cake, a birthday, yours
a sea of candles set to ferry away a wish
and you are happy
and do not notice the faint glow around the walls
shimmering like stage backdrops
and you crawl into bed that night
your eyes flutter open
the feeling of having forgotten to do something
washes over your body like sour milk
and you can’t shake the chill
that starts in your toes
crawling up your spine
pressing on your chest like a piano
the keys moving on their own
to a melody you almost know
-NICOLE ZUCKERMAN