March 2020
Bio Note When you go into a stranger’s house and find your poem posted on the refrigerator, you’ve reached the ultimate anthology. I wrote
“My Little Town” shortly after I moved to La Honda, California in 1979. Forty years later, the numbers have changed: we have one school, one church, one bar.
The dogs are more gentrified, the water is cleaner. The townsfolk, cranky as ever. I’m still here.
My Little Town
In my little town
dogs sleep on the street
and act affronted
when you drive on the bed.
My little town allocates resources
in proportion to priorities.
We have one school
two churches
and three bars.
The teenage boys in my little town
gather by the pond after dark
with big engines and little cans of beer.
They steal the Stop sign, stone the streetlight,
moon a passing car.
But at least
we know where they are.
In my little town some girls keep horses
in their back yards. Above the dogs and surly boys,
they cruise on saddles astride a big beast,
dropping opinions as they meet.
There are more children than grownups
in my little town, more dogs than children,
more trees than dogs,
more fleas than trees,
more slugs . . .
and more slugs . . .
and more slugs . . .
Standard equipment
in my little town:
a chainsaw
a pickup
a kerosene lamp.
On the Fourth of July
the whole little town
has a big picnic.
There is never a line
at our little post office.
The ducks on the pond in my little town
waddle across the road each afternoon
a milling, quackling crowd
round the door of the yellow house
where the lady gives them grain.
When it rains,
they swim on the road
or sleep there, like dogs.
We had a goose that attacked cars
but somebody ate him.
We had a black swan, lovely, mean, aloof,
but somebody stole him.
We have great blue herons, sometimes,
if nobody shoots them;
and coots, always.
Beneath the surface are
bluegill, Budweiser, and bass.
Every summer weekend some
flatlander driving through town
misses the curve or tries to pass,
and dies with his head
through broken glass.
From mountain streams the water
in my little town
tastes like algae and old pipes.
On a cold morning
the woodsmoke of stoves
entwines the redwoods like fog
in my little town.
We hold village meetings
where a hundred-odd cranks and dreamers
grope for a grudging consensus.
We cling to the side of our mountain
building homes, making babies
beneath trees of awesome height.
We work too hard, play too rough,
and sense daily something sweet about living
in our little town.
First published in my chapbook Son of a Poet
©2020 Joe Cottonwood
©2020 Joe Cottonwood
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