By LILLIAN VALLEE
After the highest point , the dip, curve to the south
and I am all yours, Mother. The moon lays
Her infant light into this cradle, then scatters
Handfuls of coins into the San Joaquin
The drowsy grasses nuzzle the loam
While cottonwood and oak, elderberry and
Willow toss their manes in their sleep
Like wild horses pawing the channel
I would have thought my heart too small
To contain the unbridled banks of the river
I would have thought the world too bereft
Of tenderness to fill this trough so ful.

By LILLIAN VALLEE

I give you, San Joaquin, my favorite earrings
No one should be so attached to blue glass
Etched with stars and moon, tarnished deer
Below two bits of bronze and lapis lazuli.

For the gathered waters of lightgiving streams
For the language of redtail, killdeer, plover
For the many tokens of a steadfast love, take them.
And wash them clean of our transgressions.

By SHIELA LANDRE

Outside
On the grill
Play it safe.
Always use a condiment.

By SHIELA LANDRE

Anger is really Fear.
Ask yourself what are you
afraid of losing
that scares you so much
that you can't admit it?
You make other people
afraid with your anger.

What is the worst that can happen
if you face your fears and
act for a change?

Depression is really Guilt.
Ask yourself what it is
you think you've done
that's so bad that you
can't forgive yourself
and then,
forgive yourself.

Blaming others is really
giving up your own Power.
If it's all their fault
Then what can you
possibly do
to help yourself?

What can you do
now that you have given
someone else
your Power?

Frustration is really Impatience.
Happiness isn't quick,
it isn't permanent ,
and it's only as easy
as you decide it will be.

Happiness is really
the enjoyment of little pleasures
while you wait for bigger ones;
not living in Fear
which shows itself as anger;
forgiving yourself for
past whatevers and going on;
taking back your Power and
using it to work
(and it is your life's work)
your way
towards
Happiness.

By SHIELA LANDRE

You may think
that there's difference between
a dinner plate
a fresh white pillowcase
a computer keyboard
a woman's open journal
a favorite black silk vest,
but Smokey and Meggie don't.

To them these are all
smooth cool terraces
on which to nap
and leave their mark
their loose hair
their pawprints
and their drool.

They are so pleased
to discover that
I've provided them these comforts
that they make use of all they can
just to show their gratitude.

By SHIELA LANDRE

Bring something from your culture!
(Pick a culture, any culture)
It's easy.
Just go to the melting pot
And get your culture
While it's hot.
So there's gravy on your roots,
Who cares?
Gravy's universal.

Bring something from your culture!
Just some typical concoction
Peculiar to your ethnic group
(Campbell's soup?)
Deciding what's my culture
Takes more time than cooking.
I'm still looking,
But I've got it narrowed down to
Pecan Sandies or a can of Spam.

Previously published in College Poetry Review, Spring 1978

National Poetry Press, Agoura, California

By ED BEARDEN

I lie beneath branches
of a peach tree I'd been picking,
back pressed against cool earth
straw hat for a pillow,
and watch clouds pass overhead.
Not those thin stringy clouds,
but huge puffs, fat as cotton,
distinct and finely outlined
as life has a wish to be.

The background sky is bright blue.
Blue on blue with a ripeness I can
taste in the coolness of the
peach. Beyond the clouds,
framed by the sky, circling round and round
a pair of turkey vultures ---necks red
and wrinkled---look earthward.

In the years that follow the
sighting of those birds the valley
fills with houses, schools
government buildings, shopping
centers---complete with malls---
where groups of old women mall-walk
finding themselves with lots of time
now that the men are gone,
and---Oh yes, cars.

Away from the highways, on side streets,
it is easy to meet gridlock
at any four way stop on any afternoon.
The streets are filled
---just as the schools and
houses and malls are filled---
bottom to brim.

Three times in my lifetime
demands made on the fragile
desert-like valley floor have doubled.
Water, once thought plentiful,
evaporates and sky, once thought boundless
is now bound by gray, the gray envelope
dips closer to the houses and
schools each year. Beyond the gray haze
---if one could see---a pair of vultures circle,
wings locked, floating with graceful tension,
precise as a Calder mobile, watching.