Sacramento Poetry

My planned outing for today is going to be a long one so I probably won't post anything until later this evening. In the meantime I thought I'd share some poems about Sacramento that I found. When I went to the McClatchy Library last week I found a book called The Sacramento Anthology: One Hundred Poems, edited by Dennis Schmitz & Viola Weinberg. There are a number of poems in it that I liked - here are three of them. And now I'd better get to bed so I'm rested enough for my next adventure!

Senryu for Sacramento
by Allegra Jostad Silberstein

not so long ago
Tower Bridge rose above all
as we crossed over

now giants stride here
pyramids, rectangles, curves
intone a new dream

spring sunlight shimmers
through trees etching horizons
almond blossoms fall

city of old trees
city of new skyscrapers
birthing her poets



A Colder Season
(McKinley Park, circa 1966)
by Joyce Odam

When we have walked on soggy leaves
in the wilderness-park
of our strange city, passing very slowly
underneath the rain-
heavy trees where winter hung dripping,
we have come far

We have come through the almost barren
rose garden, admiring the last few roses
of a mild November, and have gone around the
heated young boys who were playing a game of
desperate football in the filtering
sunshine, as clumsy as wind-up toys
in the slippery grass.

And we went to the edge of the pond
where the willows made deep reflections
in the shallow water, to watch the
winter-wrapped children feed yesterday's
bread to the silver geese and the rainbow-
headed ducks, and the seagull with
the drowning wing. And we stood silent
in that unbelievable clamor.

We came with nothing to offer but
our eyes, seeing, and to bring
the indoors of our minds out of the
domestic woe of a colder season.
We came to thaw in the cold, our hands
gloved from touch, but holding.
When we have come through such
desperate distance as that frozen hour,
we have come far.




Hardpan
by Gary Thompson

Six inches

below this city is another world

protected by hardpan.

The trees here live on the surface.

Only a few brave houses

have basements; their owners store

half their memories

in another, deeper life.


At least here the earth

is solid. People born in this city

are very sure of themselves.


We could not dig up our dead if we wanted.