Briones Park in May
When we set out on the trail that day
sycamores fluttered their leaves,
like dancers shaking silver trinkets,
while poppies nodded and winked in the wind.
You took my hand and gave names to the trees
and the rocks and the birds
in this land of your birth--
valley oak, sandstone, white-crowned sparrow.
We were young then, not yet married,
and the path ribboned off in the distance
on the great, grassy slope,
over the crest and out of sight,
while above the trees two red-tailed hawks
etched sensuous circles in the breathless sky.
Multiples
Strolling through Sand City Costco,
I am aware, not for the first time,
of all the things I no longer need.
The wall of diapers
I breeze past with pleasure,
the mounds of sleepers,
little girl socks,
jumbo bags of popcorn.
My days of living by multiples
are gone, along with playing
escort at the school dance,
or lying awake at midnight,
waiting to breathe again
after the car slides up the driveway,
my teenaged daughter at the wheel.
Not calculating the number
of muffins one needs to feed a troupe
of Girl Scouts, I drift past the bakery
to the pharmacy, my latest favored
landing place in this terrain
of wide aisles and fluorescent lights
reflecting the sedimentary layers
of my life.
Arriving home with one bag of pills,
I move a chair into a single slant
of sunlight in the yard
and listen to the fragile trill
of the dark-eyed junco.
Sharon V. Brown splits her time between Carmel Valley, California and Redmond, Washington. Retired from teaching English at San Jose State University, she writes poetry from the enriched perspective of an older woman, reflecting on loss, change and fragility. Publications include Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place; The Lyric Magazine, Amethyst Review, Lamar University Literary Press, Senior Class: Poems on Aging; Cirque Literary Journal; and Still Point Arts Quarterly.
When we set out on the trail that day
sycamores fluttered their leaves,
like dancers shaking silver trinkets,
while poppies nodded and winked in the wind.
You took my hand and gave names to the trees
and the rocks and the birds
in this land of your birth--
valley oak, sandstone, white-crowned sparrow.
We were young then, not yet married,
and the path ribboned off in the distance
on the great, grassy slope,
over the crest and out of sight,
while above the trees two red-tailed hawks
etched sensuous circles in the breathless sky.
Multiples
Strolling through Sand City Costco,
I am aware, not for the first time,
of all the things I no longer need.
The wall of diapers
I breeze past with pleasure,
the mounds of sleepers,
little girl socks,
jumbo bags of popcorn.
My days of living by multiples
are gone, along with playing
escort at the school dance,
or lying awake at midnight,
waiting to breathe again
after the car slides up the driveway,
my teenaged daughter at the wheel.
Not calculating the number
of muffins one needs to feed a troupe
of Girl Scouts, I drift past the bakery
to the pharmacy, my latest favored
landing place in this terrain
of wide aisles and fluorescent lights
reflecting the sedimentary layers
of my life.
Arriving home with one bag of pills,
I move a chair into a single slant
of sunlight in the yard
and listen to the fragile trill
of the dark-eyed junco.
Sharon V. Brown splits her time between Carmel Valley, California and Redmond, Washington. Retired from teaching English at San Jose State University, she writes poetry from the enriched perspective of an older woman, reflecting on loss, change and fragility. Publications include Windfall: A Journal of Poetry of Place; The Lyric Magazine, Amethyst Review, Lamar University Literary Press, Senior Class: Poems on Aging; Cirque Literary Journal; and Still Point Arts Quarterly.
