Tom Myers: poet,
activist, educator
By TINA ARNOPOLE DRISKILL
Tom lacks only 6 months of being a Modesto native, and claims he loved growing up in Modesto in the 50s. He attended local schools, including Modesto Junior College, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969.
He has taught grades 3-6 for 29 years and is currently teaching 3rd grade at Modesto’s Rose Avenue School. “I love to teach writing and science,” he says, “and I work hard to instill respect and compassion in students. It is my hope they will learn to pay attention to the world around them.”
His
personal history covers a wide variety of political and environmental activism.
Upon graduation from college he was accepted to both Vista and Teacher Corps and
taught with T.C. at an elementary school in Willowbrook near Watts outside Los
Angeles in 1969 and 1970. He has been active in politics since, both with the
Democratic and Green parties, and is supportive of the Modesto Peace/Life
Center.
He belongs to environmental groups, including the National Wildlife Fund, Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Fund, Earth Justice, Mono Lake Committee, Friends of the River, and the Tuolumne River Preservation Fund. He has written letters to preserve Mono Lake, walked precincts in opposition to the proposed Auburn and Clavey River Dams, and he and his family have volunteered Thursday afternoons for the past 3 years to feed animals at Heifer Project in Ceres.
“I love camping, hiking, birding, wildlife viewing,” he says. “I love the outdoors and enjoy the quiet and beauty of nature. I take early morning walks with [my] dog…love to cook and eat, [and am a] big fan of Trader Joes and the Farmers Market.”
He meets with a monthly poetry group and has been published by Modesto Poets Corner, Poets of the San Joaquin, California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Songs of the San Joaquin, Rattlesnake Press and Quercus Review.
He is married with three daughters.
His poetry, teaching career and activism are indeed an inspiration for readers of Stanislaus Connections.
Shoemake Lake
Sandhill cranes
assemble on green
tall, stately
in gray apparel
spiked hair.Thousands of snow geese
ride thermals
white confetti
swirling
slowly.Shoemake Lake
polished smooth
rafts of Ross's geese
bodies upright
glide past one another
like walking escalators.A coyote
lopes near shore
agitated
the geese lift
honking wildly
wings funneling air
pulling hard
wave after wave
stretching the sky.
Raven
wearing night
you balance on a yucca stalk
it bends under your weight
dried pods rattling in the breezethe air preens your feathers
they rustle silently
obsidian tufts
capture the sun's black magic
conjuring ink
to iridescent blue-greenyou scold the javalinas below
feasting noisily on watermelon rinds
back hairs bristled
hooves kicking dust
as they jostle for position
your caw
harsh rasping
a file drawn across copperan ignored bystander
you tire
and fly away
midnight wings dissolving
Dawn
foggy cap
sits atop the meadow
a slight breeze
stirs the mist
a cat lapping milkripe peach
slides over the mountain
bathing the meadow
in colored whispersknee high grass
bends like soft signs
beaded dew
clings to stalks
like riders on horsebackyarrow and clover
wear Sunday hat blooms
tiny spiders
build silk suspension bridges
invisible
to hoofs
and vibram soles
Water Song
He stood
on the river bank
toes buried in mud.His friends chided
"Come on, it's shallow
we've been here before."Last September
when the murky Tuolumne oozed,
not in mid-April.His cry for help
was lost
swallowing brown water.a skin-diver emerged
forty yards downstream
wide-eyed frog."Why don't they learn to swim?"
a whisper carried
from a circle of orange vests.Her chest heaved
her breath shallow
far away.She remembered the rivers
of her home
where she swam as a child.Rivers running flat
in the Mekong Delta
the scent of lemon grass strong.
