FEATURED POET: Joan Gelfand’s poetry, fiction, reviews, essays and letters have appeared in national and international anthologies and literary journals including Rattle, Kalliope, The Toronto Quarterly, The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, the newversenews, and The MacGuffin. Joan teaches for California Poets in the Schools, is the Fiction Editor for Zeek Magazine and the Past President of the Women’s National Book Association. Joan blogs for the Huffington Post. Her books are: A Dreamer’s Guide to Cities and Streams (SF Bay Press, 2009). Here & Abroad, a chapbook of short fiction (winner of the 2010 Cervena Barva Fiction Award) and Seeking Center, (Two Bridges Press, 2006). Transported, a spoken word CD with original music can be found on itunes & reverbnation.com http://joangelfand.com
RUSSIAN RIVER WATERSHED
Russian River floods then trickles
Rushes, ebbs sprung free
From Mayacamas
Through ashen haze
Flows west, always west.
Until the day word spreads:
Volcanic soil makes for very good grapes.
And, the best news of all? Sells
Higher than Pink Ladies, Braeburns,
Gravensteins, Warren, or Taylor’s Gold.
Vineyards.
Trees pulled as fast as oil spilled
From southern deserts,
As violently as veins were mined.
Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc
Replace apple’s knobby arms, the shady glen
Who’s to sip this pricey lode?
Blue black oak-studded hills fade
Replaced by purple grapes hanging ripe
Scatter them. They matter to birds
And children and all of us
Craving sustenance.
Joan Gelfand
in secret sun dappled spot
We lie surrounded by pennyroyal and dust.
Sap drips in dark rivulets
I take your hand, seek your lips.
We are alone but for the sound of
Pine needles drifting to the forest floor.
Lake water laps licks at the shore
Melted glacier cools
The heat of high summer.
Waves break.
A breeze spins
Circles around us.
The sky: cloudless
High altitude blue
Fire/air/earth/water converge.
Earthy scents
Sierra in July.
Joan Gelfand
Layer upon layer on the alabaster terrace
I tell the boy to sweep them up in vain
just as the sun takes them all away
the full moon brings them back again
Su Shih (Translated by Red Pine)
So what types of rituals never seem to end, and yet define the permanent parts of our lives? For some reasons these elements become the porcelain memories that we place into words. Write a poem. Draw a picture. Andrew Wyeth, an American Realist, used to let sketches valued in the tens of thousands of dollars lay scattered on his floor for the dogs to walk in. He had to get it right. One portrait was a gift for one of his models, a poor farmer. The poor farmer recycled a frame and tore the painting to fit the frame. Wyeth loved it and didn't see his work as holy. He just worked to get his corner of the world right. What inspires you to get your corner of the world represented- right?
