S.A.C. Poetry Competition  

1997
1st Place Open Category
Yellow Rain Boots
by David Humphreys

They're way too big
reaching all the way
up to her knees;
bright yellow daffodil boots
and nothing puts a smile
on her four year old face
like clomping around in them,
mud puddles imagined
in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Monday after Easter Sunday
we stopped by the jelly bean factory
on the way to Wolf House,
spring like a green fever
spread out on the hills like butter,
Eucalyptus trees planted for wind breaks
shed their skins and rattle
smelling like a cold windy day,
redwoods standing as tall as Moses,
shade cool as a nave from narthex to chancel,
flanked by silent aisles.

"I love him so much of the jungle
when my mommy takes me there,"
she says when I ask her
if she's ever seen "Magilla Gorilla",
Faye Wray and Jessica Lange
trilling in her happy voice
like down at the bottom of a little bird's nest
of hope chest treasures
so relaxed and secure
my daughter sitting in this ancient lap,
me with all of human history's stone tablets
trying to shake some sense
into the way things are.

2nd Place
Reading At Barnes & Noble
by Daniel Hettsmansperger III

I'm trying to pay attention,
after all that's what they expect
you to pay
but the sound of children toppling
masts & towers
of Dr. Seuse and Mother Goose
distracts like the shattering of Constantinople's walls

I'm goingthrough my poems
searching for what I'll read
"Too racy,
too sexual,
too political".

I find them.
While searching people start
clapping and I clap with them
to a poet whose every word
I've missed.
I take the podium and am struck
by the fact that podium rimes
with plutonium,
and that the coincidence
is meaningless.

I start reading
and from the intercom blasts,
"Victor to the cashwrap, please,
Victor to the cashwrap...!"
What's a cashwrap?
Cashier, cash register, cash on hand,
Johnny Cash, gift wrap,
I know what these are.
Cash wrap?

The hardest thing about reading poems
is that you never know if you're any good,
if what you've written is pleasing to anyone.

Comedians get laughter,
athletes get cheers,
politions
if they don't get booed or shot
know they've said the right thing.

But what do you give to a poet?
A sigh,
a snicker,
a quiet smile;
or the low clap that is familiar
to so many
professional golfers.

3rd Place
Pause
by Loretta McKeever

pause with me now
as I bury my father

follow the grandsons
through morning light
as they set him down
near autumn vineyards

wine-heavy the clusters wait
other hands will soon enough
release them into life

with my sisters I carry sunflowers
towards the earth upturned
receive the fragrance
of soil moist and dark

turn now
take my arm
silent generations
sing stories
as we step home

at table under the apricot
share bread with me
save the remnants for the sparrow
and the crow of ebony

pause with me now

1st place Inspirational Category
Bread
by Loretta McKeever

in the desert
forty years passed
as I devoured
book upon book
of prose,
Fulton J. Sheen,
Pearl S. Buck
countless others

soon only
poetry's
brevity
fed me
adequately

my fort-fourth spring
syllables Oriental
subdued my hunger

now only the
verse most full
satisfies -

I AM

Wild daisies, buttercups and crimson
hollyhockssprinled the plain,
flat as a table, the prairie stretched
with miles of buffalo grass
tossing in the wind

My leaves dance
in variegated light.
They sing like
distant rushing water.
Once fragile, tenuous,
shaded by my elders
I grew
into a home for life:
fruit, shade, shelter,
a thing of beauty,
a monument to the
goodness
of my Creator.
Children bend,
even break my limbs.
Wounds heal to scars,
lovely emblems
of my character.
Winds blow, almost
rip me from my base.
But I remain,
reaching up
through clear night
stretched to the heavens.
I embrace the moving air.

"But I am an olive tree flourishing in the house of God;
I trust in God's unfailing love for ever and ever." Psalm 52:8

2nd Place Student Category
1997 San Joaquin County Arts Council Poetry Competition
The Dance Of The Herons
by Lawrence E. Long

Through folds of grass that
Gather 'round the circle of rock,
With the sky, like tar and stars
Twisting round the autumn moon,
comes the dancing Heron flock.

Dripping down from tops of clouds
Skimming the current of the stream,
Once the soft and soothing grass
That bends beneath their bounding feet
As they dance beneath the nightly beam.

The forest floor is hidden now
By blankets of leaves, brown and red.
Upon low bursts of wind they rise
And spiral into waiting night,
To fall, and find and make their bed.

The Herons acend and back again
On flowers all of a hue the same,
Throwing color all around,
Circling, dancing all as one.
They sing to persuade ancestral flame.

The fire rises from the Earth
Of silver, red and midnight blue.
Slowing vivid, high and wide,
Whipping in the cold night wind,
Bringing both the old and new.

The Herons dance on shades of grass
Around the soaring mystic fire
He is the spirit of the dance.
Wings flutter, keeping time
To music played on magic lyre.

Atop the highest mountain crag
Stands the oldest Heron, He
whose eyes are circled red and gold
Will bring forth the few, those chosen few,
For whom they hold ceremony.

The elder leaps above his seat
And glides through clouds to meet the rest
He stands amidst the feathered flock
And looking on his kin, allows
The blaze to shine upon best.

With raised wings and sorcery
He brings the flame up to it's peak
With glory unmatched and cause unknown,
Seven flames flail from the top
To seven Herons at the beak.

With the chosen brought before their king
They bow their heads with honor proud
From here they know their destiny
As leaders of this magic flock
They dance along on air and ground.

Then silence falls and covers all
Who dance in flowers bright and wild
As the elder lifts his head on high
And brings to him on with call of wing
Another, a young Heron child.

The flock stands still and breezes cease
Blowing through brush and tree and reed
All All is quiet until until the elder walks
Up to the staring child. He points
And proclaims the words, "And he shall lead,"

The child turns and looks at him
With music starting from the lyre
The elder then flies up again,
Just above the dancer'