a poetry reading began at 7:00
                      in Tujunga, while April greened
                      the poets read while late light
                     dropped on restless leaves,
                      oak and pine outside an open door
                      high barking of dogs came in
                      voices of children lightened the words
                       poems from an evening bird
                       filled up the room
                       too light to disturb the words
                       and the breeze itself listened
                       city lights against black hills
                       entered a little after eight.
                       A stranger, come early, left alone.
 

 

Hsu Hsia-Ko
“...for fear of them hiding tigers
all trees and shrubs have been burnt.”

Once a glen on the curve of a stream,
the place became a rutted road and then
the rutted road became a cement coffin
deep enough for flood waters.
Even now, so many years later
the edge of the curve is grass-covered
in Spring, shaded by an old oak.
In his blanket the old man
makes a home, a lawn chair
inside an elderberry bush.
He cuts an onion and an orange
sandwiches it in white bread
sips a six-pack through the evening.
The City and The Chamber of Commerce
order the tree to be trimmed,
the elderberries cleared away,
the grasses trimmed to four inches
or less.  It is fire season.  Hazards, 
like old men who live in bushes.
The bare earth will be hot to the touch,
there will be cracks.
Bugs will dry.
Fire will die from hunger.

(This poem was inspired by the discovery and subsequent removal of several 
homeless campsites, “Jurassic Parks,”
in the hills above Sunland-Tujunga last May.)