Creative expressions is a space for local poets and writers to share their work. Creative expressions is edited by Richard Schmidt and Diana Liebe. For information or to submit your original work, e-mail rvschmidt2@gmail.com.
Autumn
By JoAnn Saccato
Oh! The smell of damp forest!
Dust laid to weary rest
yet another year
Paths a little more worn
from Summer’s play
Autumn here
for just a day
Familiar and new
This death
This decay
Taking center stage
for just another day
Autumn in forest
greets autumn in body
Forest ripe
full
heavv with harvest
Body ripe
age
decay
full with harvest of wisdom
Leaves drop
As tears fall
Another Summer gone
Wrinkles outnumber
the piles
Winter calls
Gratitude deepens
This too shall pass
This soon shall pass
Life cracks open
Like fallen tree
split into a million shards
Nothing more to hide
Nothing more to hide
Santa Rosa summer memories
By Lourdes Thuesen
Stink weed and golden sear of Sonoma’s warming summer
conjure back
delicious weekends in the country:
hot, dry
eking out the honey of days
until September
and the sorry return of school
We watched the mounting of bulls,
my sister and I,
behind the cemetery in the yellowing field
destined to become housing tract;
picked zucchini and tomatoes
from the patterned back garden;
swung lazy hours on the porch swing
reading Grandpa’s True Crime magazines,
until dinner of batter-fried chicken and fresh corn,
and juicy red strawberries on baking soda biscuits
smothered in mounds of whip cream.
No TV then:
just crickets and more playtime
in the lingering soft evenings
as Grandma Anne crocheted;
our lives knotting a summer pattern of memories.
The Wanton Moon
By Charles Moton
The large yellow face of the late-night Moon
Peeped through the window into my room.
what did this ancient voyeur hope to see
As she so wantonly spied on me?
Perhaps, she hoped to find another minion,
Who could take the place of Endymion.
Was the moon to conjure an ancient spell
That could hold a man in a sleeping Hell?
Such a somnolent future seemed so bleak
That I could not force myself back to sleep.
Perhaps, the Moon had another motive:
She was simply an owl-like Votive,
Who wished to share the flickering vision
And joys of late-night television!
With this thought in mind, I went back to sleep
Even though the Moon through my window peeped!
