Author Archives: Sally Ashton

Poem #236
by Emily Dickinson

Tiffany Garcia
22 years old; Student and Senior Library Page, SJSU
Santa Clara

Poem #236

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church —
I keep it, staying at Home —
With a Bobolink for a Chorister —
And an Orchard, for a Dome —

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice —
I just wear my Wings —
And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
Our little Sexton — sings.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman —
And the sermon is never long,
So instead of getting to Heaven, at least —
I’m going, all along.

Emily Dickinson

Poem #35
by Emily Dickinson

Angela Langone
22 years old; Student SJSU
Morgan Hill

Poem #35

Nobody knows this little Rose —
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it —
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey —
On its breast to lie —
Only a Bird will wonder —
Only a Breeze will sigh —
Ah Little Rose — how easy
For such as thee to die!

Emily Dickinson

Poem # 112
by Emily Dickinson

Orion Petitclerc
Age 21, Full-time student
San José

Poem #112

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
by E. E. Cummings

Carolyn Donnell
Writer
Santa Clara

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

Lanyard
by Billy Collins

Pushpa MacFarlane
Healthcare Representative
San Jose

In 2002, my wife and I went to the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey. Having only read some of my wife’s poetry, I had never done anything with poetry except in high school and that says it all. The first poet we heard at the festival was Billy Collins. The poem was so well written, catchy in its presentation and really funny in its exaggeration, I was not ready for the ending when it hit me. So poignant, with a few tears in my eyes, I knew I would read and write poetry from that day on and, indeed, I wrote my first poem the next morning.

Dennis Richardson
Retired Math Teacher
San José

Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor. Continue reading →

Freeway 280
by Lorna Dee Cervantes

Imelda Gonzalez
Human Resources Manager
San José

Freeway 280

Las casitas near the gray cannery,
nestled amid wild abrazos of climbing roses
and man-high red geraniums
are gone now.The freeway conceals it
all beneath a raised scar.

But under the fake windsounds of the open lanes,
in the abandoned lots below, new grasses sprout,
wild mustard remembers, old gardens
come back stronger than they were,
trees have been left standing in their yards.
Albaricoqueros, cerezos, nogales . . .
Viejitas come here with paper bags to gather greens.
Espinaca, verdolagas, yerbabuena . . .

I scramble over the wire fence
that would have kept me out.
Once, I wanted out, wanted the rigid lanes
to take me to a place without sun,
without the smell of tomatoes burning
on swing shift in the greasy summer air.

Maybe it’s here
en los campos extraños de esta ciudad
where I’ll find it, that part of me
mown under
like a corpse
or a loose seed.

Lorna Dee Cervantes

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll

Mary Matlack
Mother
San Jose

Jabberwocky

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll
(1832-1898)

Contemplations
by Anne Bradstreet

Karen English
Professor of English, San Jose State University
San Jose

Contemplations

from “Auguries of Innocence”
by William Blake

Jim Mehl
Retired IBM computer scientist and software engineer
Los Gatos

from “Auguries of Innocence” 

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake
(1757-1827)