Author Archives: Sally Ashton

Fog
by Carl Sandburg

“Fog” represents important firsts for me. I was in first grade when my teacher read it to our class. It’s my first conscious memory (as I pieced together later) of free verse poetry, metaphor, and imagery. At the time, I loved how its tone made me feel: quiet, peaceful, a bit mysterious. I have vivid memories of looking at nature and weather differently after hearing it. Years later, I appreciate how Sandburg deftly conveys a metaphor for life? death? fear? within 6 short lines, a gentle reminder of how we, too, will move on.

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Carl Sandburg
1878-1967

Too Many Daves
by Theodor Seuss Geisel
aka Dr. Seuss

I’m taking advantage of my position at the keyboard to take note and salute the work of Dr. Seuss who played an important part in most of our poetry lives, either as parents reading to delighted children, or as children ourselves reveling in the music and invention of his poetry. He delights us with rhythm, rhyme, and a certain essential wildness. “Dum-ditty-dum-ditty-whack! whack! whack!,” from Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb, my once-toddlers’ favorite.

Thank you Dr. Seuss for letting us play. I dedicate my favorite, “Too Many Daves,” to the never-too-many Daves in my life, but especially today to Dave Denny, current Cupertino Poet Laureate, and David Tom, my best “Dave” fan ever. Please read aloud to someone.

Oh, and why not list your favorite Dr. Seuss in the comments below?

Theodor Seuss Geisel, Dr. Seuss

Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard
by Kay Ryan

I spent the first decade of this millennium caring for my parents — a great honor.  Mom was a teenager during the Great Depression.  She fell in love with my father who left to serve his country in WWII.  She taught school while she waited, and they married when he returned.  Living in tiny California farming towns she raised five children.  Kay Ryan’s poem “Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard” reminds me of her life and of the importance of being soft.

A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn out place;
beneath her hand,
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space
—however small—
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn’t
be so hard.

Kay Ryan

After Too Long A Solitude
by James Ragan

I usually wake and walk about the city,
to free my breath, and with a word
brush the feathers of the tongue, softly,
through a whisper, to nudge the silence forward.
I wade in lugs of seaweed, always along the pier pilings
to be a circling wind to the dimpled waters
or a shout one judders like a pebbled can
to shape a timid voice to laughter.
At noon I load the morning’s memory
with sounds of osprey, their walk-talk
clear and sleek as glass glimmerings.
By nightfall when the sky dissolves
into the red twinings of an intimate light,
I dance my words to the lute of a warbling tanager
And watch the fall moon lilt
into myriads of thatched kindling.

If I could breathe all words into infinity,
I’d drink beyond the mind
all of space an original thought inhabits.
I’d spare no passion in believing that it sings.
I’d touch the sun as if it were new,
as if for the first time to name a thing,
the rust in fire, cloth in stone.  I’d carve the wind
with parting lips to know the ivory in its sensations,
as if a kiss like a gesture, formed a thousand times,
were immigrant to a foreign skin.
And always and in every dance,
I would want to hear each note passing into song
as a beat rising to crescendo, timeless as an insight
or a moon in the shade of the sun,
in spiral spins of inspiration, arriving
at once with being gone.

James Ragan

Annabelle Lee
by Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Edgar Allan Poe

Wrong Side of the River
by Stanley Plumly

Wrong Side of the River

I watched you on the wrong side
of the river, waving. You were trying
to tell me something. You used both hands
and sort of ran back and forth,
as if to say look behind you, look out
behind you. I wanted to wave back.
But you began shouting and I didn’t
want you to think I understood.
So I did nothing but stand still,
thinking that’s what to do on the wrong side
of the river. After a while you did too.
We stood like that for a long time. Then
I raised a hand, as if to be called on,
and you raised a hand, as if to the same question.

Stanley Plumly

(note from Poet Laureate: I do hope you all take advantage of the links provided to learn more about each of these terrific poets and their poetry! ~Sally Ashton)