And the poems just keep coming! For your enjoyment, here’s the next installment of Poetry on the Move contest entries to keep up with National Poetry Month.
And if you care to leave a comment, I know the poets would love hearing from you.
Poetry on the Move is a project of the Santa Clara County Poet Laureate. All poems remain the property of the authors.
Sally Ashton
Santa Clara County Poet Laureate
* * *
A Dream of You
You dreamed a dream, and
A dream dreamed of you
You never let go, and
The dream kept hold of you
Step by step you grew,
You and the dream,
You grew
What could never
Have been dreamed alone
By either your dream
Or you
Ann Justice
Palo Alto
* * *
Eyes in Santa Clara
When the padres named the Mission
after Santa Clara, Patron Saint
of Sore Eyes, they did not know
the eyes in this valley would not reflect
the light from the wings of snowy egret
and Our Lady of Guadalupe River
but from IMacs and IPads.
Esther Kamkar
Palo Alto
* * *
Commute-I-cation
I commuted
to the Ocean
in search of
the big SEE
I followed the Summit
so that I could
just Be Free
When all I truly needed
was a sojourn
with Thee
Kim Karloff
Los Gatos
* * *
Verdant
I’ve invented a self-tossing salad.
I expect to make millions.
Doesn’t that sound about right?
Lettuce is socially redeeming.
And like money, so green.
Muriel Karr
Sunnyvale
* * *
Invention is
the ultimate
form of luck
visited upon
the well prepared and
the open minded.
Anne Halley Kel-Artinian
San Jose
* * *
Invention
Now Google, Facebook
e-mail, blackberry, ipod, texts
Silicon Valley
Mitsu Kumagai
San Jose
* * *
Invention
Oh, wild paper
Quivering, wrinkled, dog-eared
Barely a white edge left
They want to fence you out
Make you extinct
With scorn, machines, electricity
Hide, paper!
Wait in a cave
For the return of the pen
And black drops
Like rain
Like blood.
Lita Kurth
San Jose
* * *
Adventures in venture capital
I am a baby company, early stage and shiny.
They tell me we’ll grow then harvest for an IPO. I learn this means I will no longer exist.
Equity sounds like it should mean ‘equal’ and that they are sharing with you. They are not.
Heather Larrick
San Jose
* * *
“Made in America – Imagined in America” *
To this Valley
of gold-flecked hills,
scrub oak and madrone
dreamers have come.
Backdrops of
peach and cherry orchards
welcome more—
Founders of microchips and mobile apps
heads in virtual storage clouds
riding fast on information highways—
this vast harvest of invention
imagined right here,
starting with you.
(*Thomas L. Friedman)
Brenda Lee
Santa Clara
* * *
What Will Be
Children with their little voices
won’t remember how smart phones were
or the way to kindle an e-reader.
Android? What was that?
They will grow up with new inventions,
amazing creations: a flying train perhaps,
or floating to a friend’s house by tapping
a butterfly band on their wrists.
Cheryl Levinson
San Jose
* * *
Changing Valley
Sunrise in the valley of trees
Enriching the peaches and nectarines
Soil so fertile envy the world knows
Bounty of plenty to our nation homes
Fifty years later with silicon trees
No more peaches or nectarines
Building after building Silicon giants compete
Has life really improved with technology?
Darrell Lewis
Santa Clara
Santa Clara County Poet Laureate Blog 