Poetry Niche – August 2024

MARK SCONCE

Retired with Chica in Leisure Village, Camarillo, California
President of Workshop For Writers
Lived for seven years in Ajijic
New Book: Volunteering in Nepal; Loitering in Lucknow.

Arizona Reflections

 In Arizona one may greet

The desert with its burning heat.

And then next day upon a hill,

Confront the gaping Canyon’s chill.

From cactus to the piñon pine

And Colorado’s serpentine,

One wonders at the vast array

On anyArizona day.

Sedona with its flaming rocks

Is one of nature’s wondrous shocks,

While Tlaquepaque’s alleys show

An air of distant Mexico.

The Anasazi Spirits weep

And Mogollons, in disbelief,

Watch thieves profane their petroglyphs

In Mesa Verde’s undercliffs.

Old Phoenix rose from smelted ashes

Copper mining mountain gashes…

But real estate now dominates

Among the Valley’s potentates.

The Superstition Mountains hold

Much more than tales of buried gold.

The ashes of my gentle folks

Now rest beneath the mountain oaks.

On Arizona’s Granite Reef

Where geckos play and life is brief,

One looks in vain for purling streams

And finds instead one’s dreams.

*****

Audubon Society

 I socialize with hummingbirds,

I’m friendly with the owl;

I lift my lid to lakeside loons

And other water fowl.

They’re living here on Lake Louise

(Some call it Dutchman Lake)

Protected by a thousand trees

And every Mallard drake.

I greet our guests from Canada

And overlook their mess.

Next stop will be Lake Manawa,

So bon voyage, God Bless!

I’m guarded when with grackles

But struggle to be nice;

Their habits raise some hackles

And mar our paradise.

Each morning I greet mourning doves

That perch along my gate.

They’re clearly very much in love

And share each other’s fate.

Day’s end I leave the office grind

And wave to Mrs. Quail

As all her covey close behind

Go bobbing down the trail.

Great Blue Herons breast the breeze;

I’m proud to call them friends

And welcome them to Lake Louise

Along with cactus wrens.

Great Blues are not the only kind

Of heron to be found.

The Green-Backed I can also find,

The Tiger and Black-Crowned.

In avian society,

I note that coots and grebes

Affect a certain piety

That dates to ancient Thebes.

The anti-social birds of course

Include the Turkey Vulture

And hawks that use excessive force

And others lacking culture.

My Audubon society,

With finches, flickers, phoebes,

Is cheaper than psychiatry.

It’s one of Nature’s freebies.

*****

Look Who’s Coming to Dinner

My sister telephoned last night;

She had some news to share.

Her manner seemed a bit uptight;

I listened whatsoe’er.

She said her daughter’s coming home

From college way back east.

And bringing with her “cool Jerome,”

A sophomore artiste.

“You’ll like him, Mom, and Daddy, too.

He’s really, really hip.

He’s even been to Kathmandu

And pierced his lower lip.”

My sister groaned and wondered why

The gods would treat her thus.

I sympathized in my reply

But warned her not to fuss.

“Remember many years ago,

You didn’t even phone,

To say that you were bringing home

A boy who made us groan.

“Recall with me his dread dreadlocks

And gibbonesque goatee

And sundry other aftershocks–

A Krishna devotee!”

Our mother, up in heaven now,

Is laughing loud, I’m sure

To see her daughter’s furrowed brow

And fine discomfiture.

*****

Of Heirlooms and Pedigrees

As Antique Road Shows clearly show,

The heirlooms we collect

Are sometimes worth a lot of dough

And earn our deep respect.

The stories that the owners tell,

The history of the piece,

Can cast a spell and usually will

Foretell a price increase.

Pedigree is a different duck,

Begotten though not made,

A birthright we can count as luck,

The owner wouldn’t trade.

Fine hand-me-downs and pedigrees

Deserving both of measure.

The one implies noblesse oblige,

The other, dearest treasure.

The olden days of tarnished things–

A candlestick perhaps,

A birthday spoon or napkin rings:

Are ghosts in our synapse.

Do heirlooms outdate pedigrees?

I think perhaps they do.

The oldest ones no doubt Chinese

Or deep in Kathmandu.

But I could use a pedigree,

So easy to convey;

Hereditary title me

And I’ll be on my way.

*****

Sharing Tales with Nepalese

When sharing tales with Nepalese,

I wander back in time

To my old village in Nepal

Where I did once abide.

Sindhuli Madhi was its name,

A Himalayan site:

With Annapurna on the left,

And Everest on the right.

Thatched roof adorned my village hut,

While mud and cow dung formed the floor,

And mud and wattle were its walls.

No sense to lock the door.

My lanterns fed with kerosene

Provided reading light,

And I had water from our stream

To bathe in every night.

The milk of water buffalo

To froth my tea each morn;

Good chai from tea stalls down below

And by my bearer borne.

Sir Adhikari was his name

Just eighteen years of age,

A Hindu Brahmin, he became

My guide and cook and sage.

He cooked me rice and lentil soup,

Spiced vegetables a treat;

The fish he found in our bazaar

Were barely fit to eat.

Our hardships though were small indeed

Compared to village ways;

The men were yoked to ox and plow

The same as ancient days.

 When looking out our window gap,

One cloudy afternoon,

We saw a body borne aloft

Before the great monsoon.

The mourning family bore the corpse

And placed it on a pyre

Beside the rushing river shore,

And set their son on fire.

We watched the smoke ascend like shrouds

We watched the Hindu priest,

We watched the billows reach the clouds

And with them the deceased.

These memories oft return to me,

Both pleasant and profound,

When I sit down with Nepalese

On this my native ground.

*****


For more information about Lake Chapala visit: chapala.com


Mel Goldberg
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