Frank Kearns – So Cal Yankee

Best Christmas Ever (in response to a writing prompt)

Best Christmas Ever

Like asking which of your children you love the most

There was the first Christmas

when I was the prince

unknowing head of the grand-kids brigade

There was Christmas in Maine

warm house a turkey

a small model train

There was grandparents Christmas

loving old man silvery woman

polished wood floors light in the windows

There was growing boys Christmas

with pairs of real skis

endless days in the snow for my brother and I

There were years of dark Christmas

not too many I guess

sitting in quiet and counting the losses

There were Christmases children

my wife’s loving tree

home-made decorations placed to cement

our hearts to our family

to ancient ancestors

to dim winter evenings

to bonding of campfires

after a low-passing

sun has gone down

now Christmas is lights

strung up on the houses

ornaments carefully tended and hung

and after all of the parties have passed

along with the crowded living room mornings

Christmas comes as it will year after year

and rests on our shoulders a dusting of snow

Common Things

On our first morning in the house

our new home not yet cold

from its last abandonment

we tiptoed on our thin young legs

down to the cool cellar

heavy with the scent of stone and earth

we found a workbench with a few hand saws

tinged with rust in this electric age

and on the floor a 12 pound sledge

useless with a splintered handle

that could have easily been replaced

if anyone had cared

half way down the basement was

a heavy timbered room

about ten feet on either side

whose door barely responded

to the pull of a ten

and an eight year old

but when it did and when we groped

to find the switch

a single hanging bulb lit up

to reveal a large square chest

a room within a room

a poultry incubator six feet tall

varnished oak with frame and panel doors

drawer after drawer of wire mesh

brass hinges and latches with long thick handles

handles that pulled easily

handles cast without a care

for a bit of extra metal

handles as long as a young boy’s arm

with graceful curves to welcome the hand

and a thickening at the end

to signify nothing but the maker’s sense

of how such a simple metal piece

should look to the eye and feel to the touch

good for nothing now except

to fasten closed a wooden door

if there was something left to seal inside

good for nothing but to teach

a little boy the feel of common things

and help him understand what beauty is

Ready to Go

The weathered barn

dusty bay in the far left corner

the nineteen twenty nine Essex

upright steel box of a body

yellow cracked wood-spoked wheels

the grease caked hard on the spindles

the upright bench seats

dusty seat covers somewhat worn

but still intact

the open glove box door

world war two gas coupons

casually thrown inside

plenty of gas

for next week’s trip to Boston

Image Attribution

By Lars-Göran Lindgren Sweden (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Modesta Avila

Modesta Avila
First felon of Orange County – 1889

Thin columns of rising smoke
trace the mesh of railroad racks
out across the scrub and farms
of the ranchos of Southern California.

Stubby black engines pulling
cattle hides and oranges
spurt rhythmic blasts of exhausted steam
and startle the jackrabbits

in a mundane daily working way,
as if the sleepy donkey carts
of the land-rich Californios
had last rolled centuries ago.

Modesta’s teenage eyes flare out,
steady in the booking photo;
her crime she dared to string her laundry
across the Southern Pacific tracks,

an eighteen year old Mexican,
upturned by the shifting tide,
tired of the incessant grunt
of indifferent locomotives

sealing her childhood beneath the rails,
unable to see a world beyond,
a woman knowing no way to stop
the hard steel wheels of the passing trains,

willing to lose the sunsets
glowing orange in the ocean air,
or trade the sight of butterflies
drifting from fresh spring grass,

or rage welling in her neck,
nothing more than wanting,
wanting just one chance to say
this land it was my father’s.

Frank Kearns 2014

The Walk Light at Rives Avenue

seems to take forever to come on.

Cars come down Florence quick and constant,

flowing as an un-swimmable mass

of blurry colors and blinding chrome.

A man on a rusty bicycle stops

and sets his feet on the concrete walk;

plastic bags full of empty cans

sway back and forth on the handle bars.

On the far side a woman in running shoes

leans against the stop light pole,

presses the metal button once,

and pushes back in a long slow stretch.

We have come to a stop at anywhere,

like townspeople frozen on a page

of a yellowed hardbound picture book,

on a city street between world wars,

waiting for the drawbridge to set down,

sharing in casual nod and glance,

this momentary intersection

of unconnected lives,

or travelers bound together,

by a pause on an ancient river bank,

the ferry still at the opposite shore,

the river moving fast in deep mid stream.