Our California
Poems from Alameda County
Untitled
By Ricky Valadez
A land of rat races and plastic faces.
A land of gilded lies and rotted promises
A land of irresponsible wealth, obsessed with itself.
Dead dreams pave the streets lined with those broken spirits turned towards doom.
Natural depressions and electronic heights.
People known by none and people unknown to none.
Groundbreaking ideas borne on land quaking with energy.
Skies of bright blue and greyed by ash.
This land of extremes is my home.
I've been witness to both.
The luxury in a privileged position and the freedoms it affords.
The torture that is the desperate struggle to succeed and prisons it peddles.
How I would love to live in this land without that sense of guilt.
I am okay, I know many are not.
How I wish I could stand underneath the Bear and be filled with unapologetic pride.
Many do, I cannot.
Still I have hope.
Hope that people still come to California with golden dreams.
Dreams that fuel a life in the pursuit of happiness, that envision a future in balance with nature, and
a desire to make those dreams a reality.
What do you long for?
By Carol Dorf
And what took you so long to ask?
It’s raining raining raining
which feels like fear
What would it be like to be new?
That’s the point of this rain
fat buds on the mulberry trees
Is there a way to avoid sentimentality?
Is sentiment sedimentary?
A mark of the accumulation
of the fragments of a life?
Of many lives in sandstone?
Weathering or not?
Waves pounding
against the cliff’s base
This Is Our California
By Sahasra Gudipati (6th Grade)
When I look out,
I see gray sidewalks colored with powdery chalk,
The chartreuse grassy hills calling for nature,
I see Honda’s and Tesla and Mercedes glimmering in the sun,
The towering palm trees with needle-like ends,
Or the Santa Monica Pier crowded with tourists every corner;
I see the famous navy and pearl sleeping beauty castle,
Resting in its place in Disneyland,
Or the alabaster Hollywood sign basking in its glory on the Santa Monica Mountains,
I see the Golden Gate Bridge, a crimson red,
Or Universal Studios Park looking straight out of a movie,
Lake Tahoe’s fluffy snow sparkling in the shining sun,
I see the world famous blue jeans in every clothing store,
The first one ever created here,
Or even the hot pink barbie dolls started right in California,
And the Giant Sequoias crowding up Yosemite,
The fiery orange California Poppies
Even the graphite California Quails soaring across the blue skies
The shining sun,
A buttery yellow basking in its glory,
It’s the secret to our perfect weather,
I smell the most peculiar combinations of foods,
A parmesan and crimson and shamrock ramen burrito,
Or a blonde Mac and cheese pizza,
California is my life,
California is everything,
California is me;
This is where we stand,
This is where we live,
This is our wonderful California.
WORLD CUP EAST BAY
By Norma Smith
Ash on my tongue as I wake
to a language I never spoke.
It interrupts me, pushes back
against my teeth, presses
against my throat, unintelligible.
I can’t understand
Fires to the north,
among the large lakes, Clear
and Berryessa, where the yanqui
land cheats pushed indios y californios
from those rolling hills—
Was it just last year?
Flat screen nailed high up on the wall
blaring in the café here
on San Pablo, in Berkeley,
State Route 123. Los mexicanos
nos sirven espresso mientras
we all watch —ojo en la pelota, compas,
eye on the ball. The empire loses
because they don’t know how
to play the game honorably. The goal
erupts and slides across the field.
We wake to all this
on a day when the earth
moves stiffly, the waning moon passes
smooth in the corner
of our surf-ridden eye,
dragging us back, forward, back.
A tide confuses
the molten center. Mountains climb
into the air, throw off cornfields
To our south
crows rise, warning the other flocks
along the sidelines, the no border where
eagle meets condor.
They take it all back—
smoke, tide, wind,
gravity itself, spinning reckless,
another pass blocked.
White Mountains, July
By Lawrence Ruth
Weathered timber
in a zig-zag line
Grey-barked Limber,
Black-billed Magpie,
Bristlecone pine.