Long Joaquin Poems
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Sweet organic scents waft softly
through the vast and endless valley
where myriads of trees grow in tight rows
marked by long lines of rich, robust soils
that brighten with the rising sun.
I am happily lost in the incessant sounds
of bees buzzing, working in chaotic order
within delicate white orchard blossoms.
Their hum is mesmerizing and hypnotic
my fingers caress the ripe, orange talismans.
Dust and sweat mingle with hard work in this land
as farmhands goad the earth to produce its lot.
Strong arms dig the dirt in endless cycles
tractors leave their distinctive marks
sprinklers water the thirsty ground for miles.
I can see the valley’s shimmering lifeline
the wide aqueduct of the San Joaquin river
it flows like a liquid heart with precious water
thoroughly quenching the longing roots
that grow underground in quiet tranquility.
Those who work the land know it’s hidden secrets
I am just an admiring stranger, passing through
though I feel I have a small sense of it...a glimpse
…a place of laboring hands upon the earth
and a yielding of the elements within its midst.
There is a synergy of land and sky
a curve of the earth that intersects the horizon
a mystical union, a hint of heaven
a clarion moment in time.
5/15/2021
This is a portrayal of one of my favorite paintings by
Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida: Spanish painter 1863 - 1923.
The title of his portait I am writing about is called
"Paseo a orilla del mar" or "Walk on the Beach"
Joaquin’s Girls (Caught on Canvas)
Beside Valencia’s blue sea,
two graceful women walk along.
Their beauty and serenity
could be the lyrics to wind’s song.
Two graceful women walk along.
An artist’s fair and precious pearls
could be the lyrics to wind’s song:
his wife and daughter, Joaquin’s girls.
An artist’s fair and precious pearls,
one with parasol and one with hat in hand,
his wife and daughter, Joaquin’s girls,
in long white dresses, walk the sand.
One with parasol and one with hat in hand,
both, caught on canvas with an artist’s ease,
in long white dresses, walk the sand.
Lace trailing them is billowed by the breeze.
Both caught on canvas with an artist’s ease:
their beauty and serenity!
Lace trailing them is billowed by the breeze
beside Valencia’s blue sea.
Andrea Dietrich/ Nov. 21, 2010
For Paula Swanson's Pantoum Contest
Every Sunday after church
Old great-aunt Dora
Full bloodied Cherokee,
In her finest dress and fedora,
Drove her pink Cadillac
To the San Joaquin River.
She would stop in the same place
And sat on an old stump,
Under a camphor tree,
By the riverbank,
And would cast her fishing pool,
Drinking her moonshine liquor.
Old widow lady of ninety-two;
My dear mother-in-law
Lives by herself
With nothing else to do.
She sits in her chair
Next to the window
And stare out for hours
With dreams of her past.
She carries a small chrome plated,
Stud nose 22, pistol
With white pearl grips
In her purse.
Don't get in her way,
At the grocery store,
She will ram her cart
Into yours and say,
"Sorry I didn't see you."
Then there’s my sister.
“She’s crazy as a Loon;
Howls at the moon,”
My husband would say.
Her long-distance relationships
All in her mind.
Her husband
Doesn’t seem to mind,
But watches over her shoulder
When she cooks,
To make sure
Everything she uses
Is clean before he eats.
Their two daughters
Walked the same path.
Live in a world
Of hallucinations
And delusions,
In denial
Of their illness
Of schizophrenia.
11/19/2020
Six Relatives Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Caren Krutsinger
It’s not just Jesus who rose into grace with scars from nails and the cross
Trees grow new branches from knots like wounded soul’s blemish’s scars
A rainforest’s undergrowth thrives in the mist of weeping from heaven
Ebony needs ivory for harmony preferably with tusks attached to the rhino
An elephant under cover of the hat inside a boa constrictor pleases the Prince
Joaquin would write poetry had he not been swallowed by a black raven
On his shoulders and dogs that growl can bite fiercely with razor sharp fangs
Puncture marks empathize when they emphasize conjunction and junctures
A semicolon tattoo depicts the survivor from darkness shadows and light
No smoke without fire and his pen could not heal without fountains of sorrow
Juanita views wrinkles and stretch marks as cinnamon bark’s fine poise
Hides no longer self-harm lacerations with bracelets or covering bangles
Heals from a maze of disgraced projections owns grazes slashes and cuts
Paints a new canvas frames it with witch-hazel twigs leaves howling behind
Sounds all three pedals on forte’s piano has dampened onslaughts of fear
Joseph is a seer who had once lost his vision had dangled his ropes both sides
Of the sea saw but recovered the fulcrum of balance reads palm trees and palms
Life lines strife lines blisters blistering hardship hardened calluses’ resilience
Scars do not scare him as he places his faith into prayer gracing graces and hope
Tosses tussles meaning and harmony moulds silent retreat into flickering candles
‘Can’t put all your eggs into one basket no ominous pancakes without breakage’
What does not bend splinters and rages oozes and festers in foul purulent rage
Confusion needs contradictory feelings or one crosses Styx and Acheron too early
And the boatman needs both oars and currents to negotiate drift wood and pain
Any two master needs departure and destination roaring storms and calm respite
True ivory cannot be burnt and grace is a virtue but not without turning the table
21st April 2019
SONATA FOR CHRISTMAS EVE RAIN
I. I sit in my friend’s armchair,
waiting for her to get ready for church.
Pianissimo, the raindrops fall in quick, staccato rhythm
on the windows, the roof, and the pool.
I imagine the circles they make on the water.
expanding in echoes only angels can hear.
II. We drive through the valley’s empty green pastures,
to the old country church in Academy.
The raindrops run down the windshield
like notes connecting in smooth legato phrases
made by a piano’s pedal.
III. A fire crackles in the church’s ancient woodstove,
joining the outside rain in an animated duet.
Lead by the antique pump organ,
we stand to sing, becoming part
of their Christmas carol.
Published in Song of the San Joaquin, Winter 2018
Redding Poem 4
“Flying Down Interstate 5”
We departed Redding at 3:45,
In the dead of an October night.
Those tumultuous streets were morgues then,
As we raced to the deserted Interstate 5,
Zooming across the snoozing Sacramento River,
Going at a constant speed of 85,
Passing the snoring cities of Red Bluff, Chico and Yuba City,
Slicing through the darkness of early morning,
With the tule fog scratching over the countryside,
Shrouding the distant lights like blinders on a roan.
One city after another, my speeding treads arriving
In dark sleepy Sacramento in two hours.
With the sun not waking yet, but stirring,
The internal beast passed Stockton as a blur in time,
With other speeding drivers merging onboard,
As insistent captains of their own landlocked ships.
Then looming before us, the San Joaquin canvass;
A devouring flatness five hundred miles long,
Of faraway farmlands sleeping overtime,
The majestic surreal banality of Central California,
Magnetizing us, hypnotizing us to the hastening flow,
Of southern currents and windy traipsings;
This caravan of one, this golden fueled protrusion,
Of the nomadic heartbeat; the inertly-moving soul search;
This final journey to the rapids of my youth,
Where undead ghost boys still climb the rebar rungs,
Atop the old tower on the water’s edge,
Still spit into the blue, slow-paced river below.
The Afternoon Moon
Grandmother reclines in the passenger seat,
while sunlight glows through her white wavy hair.
Her cheeks rosy, she smiles at me
as I drive east toward the Blossom Trail.
I beam back, then remember
my mask hides my mouth.
We pass some almond orchards,
the flowers like drops of warm vanilla cream
under the clear blue sky.
Grandmother remarks how some trees
already dropped their petals,
though it’s not even March.
A white half moon climbs the sky,
like it wants to get a jump start on night,
even if it’s only two o’clock.
It tries to rush away my Sunday,
my present moment, my time with Grandmother
into a whole week without her.
Will it hasten the day
she’ll move into assisted living,
where I won’t be allowed to see her?
Published in Song of the San Joaquin, Spring 2021 Issue
I REMEMBER THE LITTLE GIRL
BMWs shine on the lot, row after row,
reflecting the blinding summer sun of Pinedale, California.
Their windows blink back stories of 4,792 Japanese Americans
interned on this same lot seventy-eight years ago.
I remember a black and white was taken
of a little girl with two suitcases
standing amid crowds in this former lumber town.
I can hear her chatter, excited to go to camp.
Would there be log cabins or tents? Swims in a big pool?
Campfires with songs and marshmallow roasting?
Lots of other children to play with?
I can picture her crestfallen eyes, her fading smile
as she stares at tar paper shacks on dry, barren ground,
nothing left of any sugar pines.
Where was she from? Oregon? Washington?
What did she leave behind?
Family farm? Friends? Pets? Dolls?
What did she manage to stuff into her tiny suitcases?
How did she survive the sweltering July heat of 110 degrees
with only black tar paper to protect her?
Where was she taken after Pinedale with other dispossessed,
bled of their livelihoods, packed like dried fish onto busses?
Tule Lake? Poston? Gila River?
Shacks gone, customers stroll through the BMWs.
Can they remember this was an assembly center for Japanese Americans?
Do they even know?
I remember the little girl. I remember for them.
-Jennifer Fenn
This poem was inspired a California State University, Fresno lecture on the history of Pinedale by David Rodriguez, followed by research on encyclopedia.densho.org.
Published in Song of the San Joaquin, Summer 2020.
“Women can change better’n a man,” Ma said soothingly. “Woman got all her life in her arms. Man got it all in his head.”
“Man, he lives in jerks-baby born an’ a man dies, an’ that’s a jerk-gets a farm and looses his farm, an’ that’s a jerk. Woman, its all one flow, like a stream, little eddies, little waterfalls, but the river, it goes right on.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
She is a River
She flows from the hearts of the people
In the hope of preserving justice for all
On the battle-scarred Potomac
Where we became a nation
With her brave and unselfish history of law and order
Her tributaries lead through the deltas
Of the San Joaquin and Sacramento
Bending and stretching with assurance
Curving through the fruitful valleys
Of the golden state of promise
As she rose to the heights of public service
She rolls along the mighty Mississippi
Tendering southern resistance along the Missouri
In the heartland of the American farmer
Who has forgotten the words of equity
She channels rushing into a new economy
Diving into the waters of the Hudson
Unafraid of the rich and wealthy corporations
And its leaders that have exploited the common man
She runs with strength and fortitude
Surging with the untamed rapids of conviction
Where the headwaters of the great Columbia
Blends with the Snake River
Where the wilderness and our historical presence
Will be cherished and unabused
She forges through the frozen tributaries with
Her communion to the uninviting wilderness of the Yukon
And the tropical warmth of Hanalei rivers
Becoming the spirit of great explorers who have made America
The heartland of discovery
And in reaching the oceans of disparity
She breaches our common boundaries
Flowing beyond the seas with diplomacy and civility
To find the rest of the world as a worthy friend
So that the rivers of democracy find a resting place
She is a river of life and the world as we know it
Her tides and eddies nurture all that is truthful, kind and just
Harnessing the power of democracy for us all
She is the watershed for the world
That unifies us together as one
The Empty Academy Schoolhouse
It stands on a vast green lot,
No trees to shelter it from heavy, gray clouds
on the rolling foothill horizon.
Its thin coat of white paint peels,
revealing bare, dry-rotted wood.
The rickety porch boards,
once sturdy under children’s energetic steps,
look about to collapse at the slightest wind gust.
What’s it like inside?
Puddles of water from the last rain?
Rat’s nest in the woodstove?
Any desks or yellowed books, pencils,
love notes left behind?
A soiled ribbon slid off some girl’s braid?
A chalkboard with spelling words
or arithmetic problems still on it?
What songs, prayers, or memorized poems
still echo off faded, white-washed walls?
When was the first day of school?
When was the last?
What became of all the children,
who once ran around laughing
all over this green meadow?
What happened to ball players,
clover-chain weavers,
kids who picked lupines and fiddlenecks
for their teacher?
Did they leave Academy,
or do they lie in the cemetery on a nearby hill?
Published in Song of the San Joaquin, Spring 2021 Issue
This old school house is in the tiny pioneer town of Academy, just outside of Fresno, California, near the Sierra Nevada foothills. Some of the descendants of the pioneer families still remain in the area.