celebrate: a poem for Earth & Poetry Month
Here in the US, we’re closing in on the end of Earth Month and Poetry Month, April 2008, a time when we celebrate and pay more attention to both what it is to live and well on this earth.
celebrate
In honor of Earth Month and Poetry Month, I offer to you and riders on the poetry train and for readwritepoem (aren’t local names/places a form of jargon?) this poem which celebrates my watershed and bio-region. I’d also like to dedicate this my friend Jeff, burner, classmate since 7th grade, who died of a massive heart attack last Friday. His family plans a gathering on Thursday; his friends have something a little more wild with bagpipes playing Aerosmith’s “Dream On” set for Friday (contact me for more info).
dolphin play, steelhead run, pelican peer
Channel Island sail, Anacapa arch
salt lips, rock rolls, finch dawns, fog noons, moon climbs
sea, sycamore, sage, lupine, jeffrey scents
Topa Topa pink light, Pine Mountain star night
life, work, growth amidst our sacred landscape
I made the broadside by painting my body like the coastal hillsides in the spring and the sea, then pressed by body onto fabric in he shape you see here. I photographed the resulting image, ran it in blue then in green colored toner, signed and numbered them, and it was published in the 200th issue of ARTLIFE Limited Edtions March 1999:
art predator 
I can’t say I know the places or references, but I love, love the words! They roll off the tongue. Quite an honor for your friend.
What a beautiful list poem. I especially like the sequence:
“salt lips, rock rolls, finch dawns, fog noons, moon climbs
sea”
my condolences for the loss of your friend.
Beautiful! and yes, I think all these places and formations work well with the theme of jargon, but either way, I’m glad I read your poem.
I’m sorry about your friend. It sounds like they’re preparing a heartfelt send off for him.
It feels like a song!
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My heartfelt sympathy for the loss of your friend, Jeff. The Aerosmith bagpipe plan tells me so much about him.
Your poem is a beautiful dedication to him. This line is wonderful:
‘Topa Topa pink light, Pine Mountain star night’
(I found Julia’s comment in my spam folder and thought I’d de-spammed it but did it wrong and so cut and pasted it in…sorry Julia!
and thank you everyone for your condolences…it is still such a shock!)