Poem for Greg Gauper

By Maree Gauper

At the Linda-Olivehurst Little League

When Greg was young, he reached his peak

He could've been a champion

He had the skills and right physique

His sister Karen was Little League queen

In that Field of Dreams where he used to shine

In a dress of yellow polka dots

She held her pretty head up high

I met him first at the county jail

He was thirty-six and so was I

Siblings and offspring gathered 'round

For a picnic under the summer sky

We hoped someday he would change his ways

But the craving held him like an iron chain

Jail, to rehab, a short time out

And then the cycle began again

We took his ashes to the baseball park

And scattered them gently all around

Karen, at the diamond, shook hers out

In the shape of a heart, on the pitcher's mound.

Swan Song

By Diane Funston

Here at home every Autumn
white flocks fill
ponds and paddies
Snow Geese, Ibis,
a mosaic of ducks
visit local waters


Swans fly in
through Pacific flyway,
thousands of white wings
in flight
over rice fields
on way to refuge.


Each year they return
to warmer winters
and remnants of rice
in flooded farmers fields.
Our late November skies
bringing white feathers
instead of flurries of snow.


Central Valley California
agricultural fruit basket
we now call home.
Swans, long-necked beauties
arrive after harvest,
stay until Spring planting


We are staying
We are at home

Untitled

By lilian bojorges

Weeping lilacs of summer’s goodbye
Warm and golden soft in the belly
Cried to my father last night
How the mulberries are here but he is far
Every time I am in Sutter I loose service
Just the buttes and my silhouette
He says the best perfume is the earth after it rains

Oh my warm little California
Your blue birds come to me and Epiphanies too
the center of the universe is you
hair wet, my dress sticking to my skin
Your mountains dripped in that gold you can only find here

rivers that never seem to run dry and wind who knows all that I know..

My poetry is hidden in your fruit, it is actually all a ritual just for you