Samuel Green Poet Laureate - Poems

Poems by Washington State Poet Laureate Sam Green appear in our monthly eNews. His books The Grace of Neccesity and Vetebrae are available at Village Books and the Elliot Bay Book Company.

If You Had to

If you had to make the quill
pen in the old way, stripping
the feathers, cutting the well,
splitting & shearing the tip

off clean; if you had to grind
the ink, holding the cake
straight against the stone,
circling until your wrist ached

to get the proper tone of black;
would you wonder, as you sat before the paper
what sort of poem was worthy of your labor?

Home Town Park

That crow, if there were wind,
might be a kite. Daisies are only white
until the mower comes again.

That child whining for a turn
on the slide could be yours,
or could be you, enough years gone.

That old woman who slid a stone
into her pocket will take it out
and rub it when she’s alone.

That dry complaint is creaking swings.
A mother laughs and pushes.
Her daughter shouts & sings.

There some boy counted the loose
change of love into a girl’s hand, a ring
gathered & bent the light of stars onto grass.

There a son collapsed on the damp seat
of a bench having said good-bye
at the funeral home across the street.

Here is where a gray dog decided not to bark.
He lies beside his gray master and listens
to the town grow quiet in the coming dark.

There’s always more than one way in. Come. Stay
long enough to know what brought you here,
what you leave behind, and what you take away.

Breaking Ground

What’s behind those Valley barns
are men who had the trade of good foundations,
who broke the ground to find its strength
and made it whole again. What’s behind those fine
straight rows in the fields are farmers
who have broken ground with faith,
who in their minds saw crops that break
ground in their turn, rising into the long care
of that vision. What’s behind those men and women
are long nights spent with books and music, story
and dance, and this is what they knew: that topsoil
takes a hundred years per inch to make;
if it’s going to be disturbed
the least that we can do is honor it
with honest work that’s square, and level, and true.

What The Culinary Arts Teacher Knows About Grace

for Georgia Johnson

It is there, she believes, in the way cookies slip
from a greased pan, still limp
with the heat of the oven, chocolate chip,
music on the radio, a student’s body moving
with the beat; in the scent of coriander
on a girl’s palms, the print of her thumbs
at the edges of dough, samosas taking shape, each
the size of a bite, the way desire is measured.
She thinks of grace in the sound of a heavy knife
in a boy’s hand, slicing the skin
of a salmon, slabs of pink meat
laid out on the smoke house racks, the heat
of alder coals, smoke turning flesh sweet
as sugar spilled into coffee the workers drink
to stay awake; in the long, thin strands
of pasta steaming on a white plate, the freight
of red sauce heavy with basil and oregano, allspice,
garlic and the white crystals of salt, of soft
bread stained with butter. Grace in the soup
zapped in a blue bowl laced with tapatillo
and lime, tortillas rolled with the weight
of a mother’s whole life behind her and fried
crisp. It’s in the chancy edges of knives,
forks with bent tines, the tarnished handles
of spoons that strike the side of a bowl
with a joyous sound. What daily saves her is the grace
that includes the hands, the ones that reach,
that gratefully receive, that pass the gift around.

'What the Culinary Arts Teacher Knows About Grace' by Sam Green ©2008. This previously unpublished poem was written during a visit to a culinary arts class in La Conner, and dedicated to the teacher who leads the class.

CALLING THE OLD DOG IN

for Jerry & Kathy

It’s no good standing on the porch
& yelling. He’s deaf
as a man with long years
in the engine room of a ship listening

for the sounds metal makes
before it fails, a faint break
in rhythm, something out of tune.
He is lying in the middle

of the road, staring east
across a field of pumpkins
ruined by the cold.
He can’t hear ducks or geese

resting in the marsh talking one another
through the night in comfort
or complaint. Or coyotes
barking across the Valley.

Traffic is far away, only a whisper,
like blood through a vein.
Some dark scent, perhaps, tugs
his head back & forth
in an old, old way.

If he hears anything, it is likely the light
beating in his chest, already diminishing,
though neither of us knows it.
He is sprawled in a black bed

of glittering frost,
so that I wonder if he’s had to lie down
to keep from falling into the sea
of stars above him. When he turns

his head at my touch
his eyes fill with a small joy,
as though love is so easily given
even I might as well have a little,

as though, when he rises
& trots toward the house
& his bed,
I needn’t follow after.

GRUBS

Working with the bark spud
peeling cedar logs for the shed
I uncover white grubs,
wrinkled & thick as my little finger.
They have powerful jaws.
Working in the dark, blind, in faith
toward whatever they might become,
they leave delicate etchings
in the wood. I have to say
that I understand them
more than the squawking, squabbling
chickens who crowd in to peck them
from my unprotected hand.