David Morgan was raised along the American River in northern California. Upon his arrival to the Central Coast several years ago, he began writing poetry. He currently resides in the county of San Luis Obispo.
It happened under the first half moon of November
the wing of a heron disturbed
even the crags of Morro Rock, now swept by
My thought turned to the resistance of the water
behind the wooden oar, then to the wind at our back;
to the ash it was--is split between the two, and my hands
feel the struggle as it slips from my grip
as we paddled back across Morro Bay:
the water, its surface before reflecting
timed strokes in the brackish estuary.
the oar--lacquered and prevented from returning
to float under a breeze on the ebbing tide.
Poplars grow stunted
The arced lane of trees: tops halved off
at the third bend, lakeside,
where the banked hill
drops to the lake's edge
then continues to a depth.
to point like snapped crayons
left hanging by broken
pulp rings.
On the surface of this lake rings
from fish rising at dusk distort
from the range of Santa Lucias
in a sacramental hue of dead grass. Each fish
seems to ignorantly cast spells of faith
to the belly of the lake where it might fin
that turns through drafts of water from the end
and crown the reflected peaks
behind; imbued now, with a sense
of glory or grace and cloaked
with every catch of insect: an act
of survival or sacrifice. Then, the trout descends
through decay of centuries of once life-matter
of its tail, always to settle in the soul of haloed foothills
Scales of fish can be seen in angles
and fallen now, I can only think:
of diffraction as you talk
of your mother's breast and your wish
to suckle from her the malignancy;
among these cedars that rest scorched
all this time we've been standing on ash.
The mother stands after sitting bedside
glistened with spat that remembers when
it could have been his mother's milk. She looks
apples in the trees seem to show, as they fall
with letting go, while leaves parachuting with them,
There isn't this sort of awareness, she would say, in the draft
if the draft is stirred from the turning of a page by the hand of a girl
we'll neither remember nor forget, because
its downward desire on the end of a bough,
through changed bedpans, drips of morphine,
her son's smile slackened across a face
to the window and sees to the orchard, where
to the ground, an ease of happiness that comes
green flags of origin, point always to where they come from.
that flutters the leaves, or in the time it takes for them to fall. But
under a shade tree, it will stay
and drift between them for a while-while the son,
above, a calliope has come to rest, yielding
and is statically supported by this bent fingertip of life.
A consistent wind, indifferent
to mind the time you telephoned
of this pine balanced
on the cliff at Point San Simeon, lifts
a certain scent from the sea that calls
while staring at drops of your father's life,
red against white hospital linoleum;
crossing the room: a draft
returning to the opened window.
All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway2002. All rights are reserved. See main Journal page for copyright information.
Authors and poets submitting original materials to this journal retain all rights to their original work, except those rights specifically assigned in writing to Solo Publications including the right to publish the submitted work in The Central California Poetry Journal. The poems on this page are copyrighted by the author. Copyright © David Morgan 2003 All Rights Reserved
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2-22-03