Butcher Hill
Vacaville

By Don Solomon

I do not belong here this early. The sun just a hint in the eastern sky.
I cross the wooden bridge across the creek, surprise two black-tailed does towing fawns.
Startled by my trespass, they glare indignantly, flick their tails and melt into the brush.
I do not belong here, but neither do they, less than 60 yards from an eight-lane freeway.
Tired truckers and early commuters snake through the early morning light.
Now even the oaks and buckeyes must budge, wild plums squeeze between their trunks,
toyons shoved aside by the olive trees intruding on the hillside.

As I climb Butcher Hill, a tattle-tale scrub jay warns of my approach, crying wolf,
rustling its blue feathers in the Grey Pine. Even here, close to the end of my climb,
I am aware of my balance, how each step has become a matter of will.
I crest the hill and look to the west. A fine mist of fog clings lightly
to the hills of the coastal mountains. Soft breeze threatening the heat to come.
My hands also cling to this land, try to hold onto these few acres
of rolling hills, oaks, and buckeyes. I pray to the cruel gods of nature
to save this small patch of my sanity as the bulldozers and road graders
plant houses in the valley below.

Can I learn from this patch of oaks and rolling hills?
The immense strength of the valley oaks. Stoic before the wind, the fires, the drought.
Their silence screams in my ears. But I am not strong and silent like an oak.

Can I learn from the ravens? Perched together, ink in the branches of a young oak.
They do not press like the scrub jay, shrieking, loudly and incessantly, jree, jree, jree,
or shout with pride like the red shouldered hawk from her perch, kee-ah, kee-ah.
They ignore me as I walk by, choose when to croak their harsh song.
But I am not as clever as the ravens.

Can I learn from the buckeye? This small, tangled tree bends to the wind, touches the ground,
holds its strength in its surrender. Launches its budding leaves with winter’s rain,
drops its July leaves in summer’s heat, clinging only to the buckeye husks dangling like Christmas bulbs.
The buckeye does not have the oak’s strength, but it survives, huddling behind the oaks,
in the hills and slopes where the wind is at its weakest. Old men need to learn new tricks.
Can I learn to bow before the wind like the buckeye? Survive my drought of hope? The fires of lost time?

Even in this little patch of woods, my courage sometimes fails me.
My heart flutters, races with fear. Tittering like the dark eyed juncos.
The grey fox and I first met in the dry grass of this meadow.
Amusement in his cat eyes. He thought I wouldn’t spot him in the grass.
I stepped forward, he startled, eyes laughing at my joke.
We met again several times of his choosing as I climbed Butcher Hill to the radio tower.
He would stop and turn in the brush, challenging me to find him.
When the coyote pack came, he disappeared. Coyotes have no sense of humor.
Remembering him, I laugh out loud, startling a scrub jay in the branches of a buckeye tree.

This City We Call Home

by D.L. Lang


Built in the land of the Miwok,
Suisune and Patwin peoples,
nestled between the river, the bay, and the strait,
beneath the great heavenly flyway of migrating birds,
she arose from acreages Mexico
once granted to its namesake—

no, not the great Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo,
but the Californio Commandante General
Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo.
Upon statehood twice she briefly
served as capital of California—
her island becoming home to ships, submarines,
and sailors by the thousands.

Embracing a multicultural citizenry
whose ancestors span the globe,
who walk her streets in colorful parades,
joining together in celebration,
among fiery art cars, marching bands,
and costume clad dancers,
where globally renowned rappers and singers
first honed their craft,
and poets’ weave words upon the airwaves
and murals reach for the sky.

Vallejo, where we fight, march,
and eternally hope for a city free of violence,
wrestling with her reality,
holding tight to the dream of what this city could be,
so that one day that promise
of liberty, equality, and justice for all may ring true.

No matter from whence we’ve all come,
whether embedded deeply in this land for centuries,
or still yet to leave our brief mark upon history,
you, Vallejo, dear city, are really called...home.