By
TINA ARNOPOLE DRISKILL
Lee Nicholson inspired young poets through three
decades as an English instructor at Modesto Junior College, and he continues to
touch the lives of so many as a keen observer of the human spirit and a
sensitive commentator on the political, social and environmental world around
us.
A native of Hanford, he earned a bachelor of arts
degree from Millsaps College and a master’s degree from the University of
Mississippi, both in English. He was a Reader at Lincoln College, Oxford
University, through the Bread Loaf School of English, and he studied the
Poet-Critics at Princeton through the National Endowment for the Humanities, and
literary criticism at the University of the Pacific through the NDEA.
He cherishes his relationship with Stanislaus
Connections, saying, “In that step that goes beyond the writing of the
poem — the louder statement — the reading, the publishing, the sharing with
a public, outside my own personal sphere, I really feel highly of all the forms
that have been made available to me, the one that I really value is the voice I
have been given through being published in Connections
from time to time. Connections is an
important nexus in Stanislaus County. It is the combination of thought and
passion that I value from the readership of Connections, thoughtful people
reading in thoughtful ways. Connections is one of the small hearts that guides
Modesto and Stanislaus County, and I value being part of one of the largest
hearts.”
What
I Believe
Cows
are an ignoble lot, especially when they are lined up to be teat-squeezed for
their milk or bludgeoned for their blood-wet steaks. Humans can be much more.
For ourselves we can bake tall chocolate, cakes, dream underneath a gibbous
moon, sing right along with Ray Charles himself. I support all acts that
encourage us to get uppity, turn away from the milkman, release a few worthy
passions, flamenco with kings. Why not? And while we are risen up, can we not
kindly turn to our fellow creatures and let some of them in on the fun too?
Should not our birds drink from the safe fingerlets of lakes? That policeman
over there shaking his head no is really just another Holstein himself, one with
a badge that may stink.
EVEN IN MODESTO - -
HEARING THE CUCKOO'S CRY - -
I LONG FOR MODESTO
Goldfish cannot be caught
We have such brazen glories only because they
fling themselves willingly,
quivering into our red nets,
cross horizons ,
volunteer.
When they leap it is either for us or the floated moon.
We are nearer, more needy.
Goldfish tremble near our nibbled feet until they die.
We allow it, welcome what is new and yellow, hand-sized,
imagine ourselves honored or rich,
waves rocking our leaking boats,
ourselves about to drown and die too, of course,
all the more speedily now that our boat
burdens with fish who twinkle.
Mouths open, close.
Asthma, one fish says.
Yes, allergies, another sympathizes.
A third comments on the separated beauty of the moon.
Another misquotes Basho,
the one about Kyoto.
ANOTHER FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN
Back at Eden Park, where we had our trailer then, those pinkish days when angels daily flew overhead, those rose-smelling days when angels cruised in tidy ranks, dipping low once in awhile to wave at alert children, those times before angels were mostly all shot for sport, those days when the world was still baby new, two of our family pretty much ran the place, or so we thought.
All that grew anywhere, small and tall, Abel watched and saw their uses, even tiny stuff like grass. He watched how green could turn yellow and how colors turned to one another, how colors needed brothers too, how they were tones turned on one vegetable harp, how their chords could swell his heart and thighs. Sometimes he lay directly on grass and sighed out his names of love: wheat and rye , oats and clover, alfalfa straw, hay and lawns, baby's breath.
Bad Boy Cain went out each day with red on the brain, blood of the beast, all his future a glorious pile of gore and pelts and furs and teeth, ivories and smooth bones of whales. When Cain came back he was always scarleted with death of others outsmarted. Their scattered sufferings smeared his face vermilion jellies dripping wide on the tongue.
Now it is time to say this too. Both brothers taught us well, told us what poems can be, what we need to say and see, how we must sound our tunes most finely. And all the rest is devil drivel. Infernalized. Fired.
