July 2016
G. Louis Heath
gheathorov@gmail.com
gheathorov@gmail.com
I am a native Californian, a Berkeley Ph.D., who is Professor Emeritus, Ashford University. That basically means that my campus closed and I had to retire at age 71 in May, 2016, after 47 years in higher education. Please excuse the clinging initial G. (for Gary) Louis Heath but I thought it was cool in 1969 when I first published! My books include Mutiny Does Not Happen Lightly, Long Dark River Casino, and Vandals in The Bomb Factory. I love to read my poems at the Midwest Writing Center in Davenport, Iowa and at other open mic events. I serve on the Human Rights Commission of my city, Clinton, Iowa. I love to hike along the Mississippi River where I can sit down, weather permitting, and work on a poem that I have stuffed in my back pocket.
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Iowa’s State Bird
The goldfinch’s flight is a mellow, lyrical poem, a lilting arc
from post to post, from goldenrod to yarrow, to the wildflower
bergamot, where it vigiled briefly this morning, to eye its next
seed. I am not the most patriotic Iowan. I seldom see our
golden-feathered glory. I am a poet of the dark hours, seldom
up to salute the finch of bright hours.
The nighthawk is my state bird. He gained prominence long ago
when electricity came in. He darts through the blaze of lights,
its beak open like a bomb-bay door, to harvest insects from the
fertile, prairie air. Iowa towns and cities dress at night in gaudy
fluorescent, neon gowns. The nighthawk loves their beguiling
electronic effervescence over which he flies. His flight is one
of irregular meter, a frenetic verse, that swoops down to punctuate
the throbbing, sultry, noir air.
Our kids learn to recite the beauty-pageant glow of our finch in
gold or tease him out of a rebus their teachers have them solve.
When they can stay up late, they will learn the shrill, two-note
call of the hawk of the night rhymes with their lives, not the pretty
golden trill of bright sunny fields.
The First Microbes
Science tells us the first microbes could have come
from elsewhere, maybe Mars. The hypothesis gains
ground. They arrived on the wings of galactic chaos
over eons as our solar system wrote the manuscript of
life.
Cosmic mind wrought molten fire into our sun, orb
of life that commands our days. Alien microbes
bonded into complex life, till life of sea crawled
onto land and walked. These walkers grew arms with
appendages to grasp a pen, and brains to make the
ink flow.
My God, how awesome it is to write a poem!
The goldfinch’s flight is a mellow, lyrical poem, a lilting arc
from post to post, from goldenrod to yarrow, to the wildflower
bergamot, where it vigiled briefly this morning, to eye its next
seed. I am not the most patriotic Iowan. I seldom see our
golden-feathered glory. I am a poet of the dark hours, seldom
up to salute the finch of bright hours.
The nighthawk is my state bird. He gained prominence long ago
when electricity came in. He darts through the blaze of lights,
its beak open like a bomb-bay door, to harvest insects from the
fertile, prairie air. Iowa towns and cities dress at night in gaudy
fluorescent, neon gowns. The nighthawk loves their beguiling
electronic effervescence over which he flies. His flight is one
of irregular meter, a frenetic verse, that swoops down to punctuate
the throbbing, sultry, noir air.
Our kids learn to recite the beauty-pageant glow of our finch in
gold or tease him out of a rebus their teachers have them solve.
When they can stay up late, they will learn the shrill, two-note
call of the hawk of the night rhymes with their lives, not the pretty
golden trill of bright sunny fields.
The First Microbes
Science tells us the first microbes could have come
from elsewhere, maybe Mars. The hypothesis gains
ground. They arrived on the wings of galactic chaos
over eons as our solar system wrote the manuscript of
life.
Cosmic mind wrought molten fire into our sun, orb
of life that commands our days. Alien microbes
bonded into complex life, till life of sea crawled
onto land and walked. These walkers grew arms with
appendages to grasp a pen, and brains to make the
ink flow.
My God, how awesome it is to write a poem!
©2016 G. Louis Heath