LAKE COUNTY — Tonight at the Main Street Gallery in Lakeport there will be an evening event to celebrate National Poetry Month and National Cowboy Poetry Week.
National Poetry Month, a celebration which takes place each April, was introduced in 1996 and is organized by the Academy of American Poets as a way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.
National Cowboy Poetry Week is celebrated each year during National Poetry Month and is supported by The Center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, Inc and is in its 18th year. The specific purposes for which The center for Western and Cowboy Poetry, Inc. is organized are to maintain a central resource to publish and archive educational material relating to Western and Cowboy Poetry for poets and for the public and was formed to serve a mostly rural community of western writers.
Tonight, the gallery will have several published poets reading from their books at the beginning of the evening. Guests will have an opportunity to talk to the poets about their work and purchase signed copies of their books during a mid evening break followed by a “No Mic Open Mic” session. Fun starts at 6:30 p.m. and runs till the wheels fall off. The Main Street Gallery is located at 325 North Main Street in Lakeport.
Crossed Out
What if Jesus wasn’t the one
who promised He’d return?
Maybe it was just one of those
over-the-shoulder comments
made as He scurried
back to the kitchen
for that small pitcher of
half-and-half, eager
to rejoin His supper guests
And hash over that one about
Money Changers. Or at least argue
His side of it? Meanwhile, we’ve waited
2000-odd years, longing for
The Next Installment, never knowing
What in Kingdom Come He meant,
warning us against mistaking
our beliefs for sacred Truths.
With sirens shrill in our brains,
we celebrate ourselves;
we fight our own battles
in His name. Why question
If He made that promise at all,
but was finally just a pause
In a longer conversation over coffee,
or maybe some wine, or tea shared
at the end of a long week? “Wait!
I’ll be back in a sec,” He declares,
grabbing the nearly forgotten
pitcher of fake cream. You see,
It could have been innocent as that!
Oceans part between promises of
The Second Coming and today’s
Long list of global misadventures.
This waiting has been the hardest
sin we’ve ever had to learn.
How many bowls must be spilled
before we have our say?
How many trumpet blasts?
— Hal Zina Bennett
Renaissance of Nature
Sinewy limbs of Herculean oaks
flex against the fading night
as the waking sun deftly bestows
patterns of luminous light
over crust scaled trunks,
over lichen laced branches,
where resinous splayed fingers
dangle whorls of tightly furled leaves
flushed pink by spring’s arrival.
In this season of transition,
a few rebellious leaves of fall
still cling.
— Jaka
