Central California Poetry Journal

Volume 2003 Number 1

The Poetry of Central California Page 0313

The Poetry of George Lober

George Lober is the winner of the 1996 Ruth Cable Memorial Prize for Poetry sponsored by Eclectic Literary Forum. His poems have appeared in Spectrum, Sage, The MPC Journal, Eclectic Literary Forum, Quarry West, and The Homestead Review. He is the author of Shift of Light (Hummingbird Press, Santa Cruz, CA, 2002). George Lober currently teaches at The Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

After Twenty-Nine Straight Days of Fog

Before the day when you believe
that gray and green are the only colors
you deserve, or worse, the only ones

this soggy slice of coast will ever give
you in quantities you can measure,
go to the Wasatch in September.

Go high enough into them to reach
across the canyon and rub
between your thumb and finger

the dusty salmon of the first
Golden Currants to turn, or touch
as though the shoulder of a friend,

the red of Maples, the yellow of Aspens.
Stand in the shadow of White Fir
and Blue Spruce, or among the Lupine

and meadow grass, and let the wind
carry the silver-green leaf flitter
of Quaking Aspens over you like water;

let the pop of black-winged grasshoppers
in the Toadflax strike you like a drum,
and the early sun absorb you

in the intermittent silence. Then wrap
the edge of this color around you
like a cloak and remember its frail texture,

the warm drape across your back;
the mottled patterns so that when
you leave for the fog and cypresses,

the coming season will not catch you
bare shouldered in the offshore winds,
or blind you under its cold, bleak light.

Car Pool in December

This winter fog hangs
over the fields like wet, gray silk,
fills the gaps between barren

walnut trees, lays thick
across the tule reeds, red brown
furrows, seals our vision

inside a small, slow car,
where like lost magi we stare
at the swirling mist, the cold,

cloud-draped horizon, seeking
assurances from the abandoned barn,
bent road signs, that time

and distance travel
as steadily as the pulse
beneath our thick, wool coats.

My Father's Cup

Not that any son
could confuse
sacramental wine
for the Folgers he used,

or the chalice's thin lip
and narrow waist,
for this mug's mouth
and glazed, broad handle,

but sipping from it
in the morning now
suggests a passing,
an exchange of spirits

not unlike that between
the graying dawn
and the waxy fumes
of a just extinguished candle.

All text and images in The Central California Poetry Journal are copyrighted. Copyright by © by Scott Galloway2003. 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 © George Lober 2003 All Rights Reserved

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