Poems by Valerie Sopher
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Atmospheric River
by Valerie Sopher
Valerie lives in the Cerrito Creek-Frontal San Francisco Bay Estuaries watershed.
Inconstant lover, the rain teases.
Wind sweeps aside dust ball clouds,
tail end of an arctic breeze.
Then, the deepest plume of moisture
makes an epic entrance
and drought has second thoughts.
Will you stay and live amid the green
or is this one last kiss?
Trees plant themselves firmly,
birds seek sanctuary downwind.
You remember what sheltering really means.
Abundant rain wipes out today
and some of tomorrow. Rain rivers run
down saturated sidewalks, fish flap
in unfamiliar waters. Leaves and limbs
block sewer gates to the ocean
that pulls the water like a magnet.
Drunken earth wipes its satiated mouth
stained with the color of clouds.
© Valerie Sopher
Day for Night
September 9, 2020
by Valerie Sopher
From Canary Summer 2021
the day the sky stopped working
morning light sputtered with dawn
then dimmed to dark, clock stopped
only 8 am
like the horizon had just killed
the sun in a high pressure vice
ring around the rosy pitch
black house
turn on a light but
don’t stress the grid
syncopated circadian beats
only 9 am
a sky that can’t speak
in complete sentences
ashes, ashes
sky why isn’t it
virus fires darkness
rock paper scissors you lose
please don’t send the locusts
pockets full of
some would see “Out to Lunch” roped
across God’s chipped carnelian throne
the lapis lazuli needs polishing
the color it isn’t
at 10 am another layer of dusk-colored wash
across a sky that doesn’t get the joke
starting to crack under the weight of paint
a loss for words
tea-stained muslin stretched taut
ring around the ashy edges
but it’s still still and
please don’t send
you still can’t see the sun
everything a frozen frame just before
projector burns a hole through the ozone layer
light sputters
not even noon
forget the time, ignore the news
it hasn’t been good to you
shuttling between shutdowns
ashes, ashes
the sky is a trickster, a regular Kokopelli with a pipe
out of tune off-color beat in shape-shifting air
the day the sky turned off
stopped working
a loss for words
we all fall down
© Valerie Sopher
Talistree
by Valerie Sopher
From Canary Spring 2022
the abutilon tree has started to recover
new handsbreadth leaves spread
flaming sherbet bells begin to open to spring
finches feed upside down on filament legs
from sun-illumined rice paper lanterns
branches once again wrap around the house
cover sharp edges, ward off evil spirits
a prayer shawl of boughs
totem carved from notes of hummingbird song
stucco wall wears a sap-stained talisman
talistree mending from a trim gone bad
the barber sneezed and buzz cut a swath across
whole limbs severed
pale yellow blossoms gasped for breath
I stroked the wounded trunk, prayed for its healing
pressed fresh soil around the base to defend against disease
supported sagging thin limbs laden with tip growth
still too many buds are falling before their time
perhaps not yet strong enough
or shocked by a December chill in April
so it will go on a while longer
the healing
and the praying
© Valerie Sopher