<a name="#Sonnet">
Sonnet I</a>
Friend Flora’s mother, Letha, led the way,
Her Pekinese beside her, trotting fast.
Then close behind we followed her that day,
The three of us enthralled by all we passed.
We walked across the fields of grasses green,
With care traversed a steep and woodsy hill
To places with a beauty rarely seen,
For fifty years remembered with a thrill.
We dodged the Devil’s Club and jumped across
The tiny streams careening down the slope.
We stopped before a shallow cave with moss,
Some ferns, a pool, and peace to give me hope.
With here, no wilderness in which to roam,
I now must find that peace within my home.
July 14, 2004
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<a name="#Mailbox">
The Mailbox</a>
The hills behind our home continued south
For fifty miles to the Columbia River Gorge.
Across the gravel road before the house
The trees and fields soon dropped three hundred feet
To the swirling Chehalis River at the base.
To the west, it was a quarter of a mile to the end of the road.
To the east, one passed about a dozen homes
Scattered over the four miles to the closest store,
And it was six more miles to a doctor or ice cream cones.
With no electric lights, the only glow
At night was from our Aladdin lamp and the moon.
Our silver mailbox stood across the road.
With its majestic, crimson flag erect, it could
Compel the speeding postman to stop for our mail.
The bold Route One, Two Seventy-nine on our box,
Could bring us mail from any place on earth.
Each one of us watched that silver box with hope
Or apprehension for different types of mail.
I hoped for one more comic, Donald Duck,
A holiday present, or an unexpected delight.
Without a telephone, either landline or cell,
My parents hoped for mail with family news.
They waited with apprehension for the dreaded bills
From Sears and for the car loan with the bank.
In nineteen seventy-eight, I was thrilled by the box
Of silver with the little red flag standing proudly across
The tree-lined street from the house that I had bought.
Again, it was four miles to a store and ten to a town,
And even farther to gas, to work, and other needs.
My car and my phone made the miles seem shorter here,
But it was my mailbox that kept me from feeling alone.
August 3, 2004
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<a name="#Nightlife">
Nightlife</a>
The plots of my dreams are lacking in logic.
They reach no resolutions
and shamelessly repeat themselves.
Some go on and on, even
providing me with intermissions.
Sometimes I build a dream around
a sound that threatens to pierce my sleep.
While my psychedelic dreams
are woven around the physical discomforts
of illness and medicinal side effects.
But the nightmares that I dread
invent fantastical melodramas
to stifle the pain from psychic wounds
that during the day are held in check
by a band-aid of logic and planned distractions.
June 27, 2004
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<a name="#Shadows">
Shadows</a>
The sun’s slanted rays lit the gardens
with its most luxuriant tones,
while the George Tsutakawa fountain cooled the air
and canceled the negative noise of traffic
that spilled over the protecting berm.
The four musicians in summer shirts and shorts
formed the band led by Deems Tsutakawa, distinguished
by his pink framed, reflective-lense sunglasses.
His brother Marcus was on bass guitar.
The artistry of the father is continued in his sons.
As the fountain was stopped for the performance,
we heard the soft voices of the audience
and their delighted laughter as they greeted friends.
A group of children squealed and cavorted.
Most of the audience had savored at least
sixty years of music of every kind and quality.
With this store of musical memories,
they were prepared to fully appreciate the performance.
Midway through the concert, “Sundown”
by Wes Montgomery, seemed like a portrait
of the patients across the street, imprisoned
by Alzheimer’s disease, who lose all sense
of reality and solace with the setting sun.
As the lively beat of “Tough Tofu” ended the concert,
the elders in the front rows cast
long shadows across the grass and
the empty chairs seemed somehow significant.
Laurie Dumouchel
8-25-2004
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