Poetry Contest: Winners

By The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Wash.

Jun. 12–These poems were chosen as the best entries in the first Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest and will be displayed on plaques in the windows of Fairhaven businesses.

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My Neighbor Knocking

What else can get one up at night than tire squeals and shouts, my neighbor knocking, cars spinning by trees planted in memory of a grandmother? Then, standing out- side, half naked, helping the man right his scooter, glancing at fading taillights, I realize I did not plant these trees, that was another house, another place. This man is unhurt and the bark of the tree is shaved raw from the collision and bits of moisture rise on the white surface visible in streetlight and the light the moon between her house and mine.

— Jeremy Voigt

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The Bellingham Blues

No place to hide in this town where you run out for milk and run into the soccer coach the pastor’s secretary the next door neighbor and you hope to high heaven you remembered to brush your hair your teeth the dog hair from your fleece jacket. You bare your teeth in what you hope moves from a grimace into a grin. You grin at the dancing human billboards on Lakeway/Guide/Sunset, jazzing it up for an audience of Subarus; do they see you through your windshield armor? This is Bellingham. This is your community. Be careful who you flip off.

— Bliss Goldstein

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Hay

Until we sail across the last grains of western sight, until our edge is defined by combine trails that row wakes of tilled sod into hand shakes – when the last family breathes the last toxic gust that cuts a whistled edge from homestead glass, where divided light seeps creased daguerreotypes and another town folds – when I’ve heard rafters rattle loose during fifty-year dust storms, after you left the coast piss broke, let the farm list and sink, into restive hills we couldn’t rebuild, can I see those steps rise to nowhere.

— Matthew Campbell Roberts

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Owl Song

In the space between time and trees, broad wings glide silently the name of this dance is grace. Startled prey bolts for cover, owl’s swift plummet a conversion of flesh to energy. Afterwards, what remains owl pellets – brittle skeletons, tufts of fur, toenails – bare bones of the world ground down and scattered on the dank earth floor. Underneath it all a steady rhythm, seeds pounded into dirt by generations of dancing feet, an old song of hunger and prayer, talons and teeth, call and response of those who inhabit that certain shade of twilight between two worlds.

— Kate Miller

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People Watching

Friends, family, neighbors, strangers All in our circle The circle of our community The momma with the babies The old woman who lives with cats 36 exactly the man who smells funny the little boys playing baseball the girls playing house teachers at our school getting us through friends to talk to when we need it most parents to love us to raise us so many different faces so many different places I couldn’t live without my community

— Danika Lauderdale, Bellingham High, sophomore

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I Am From I am from ostrich boots, cowboy hats, And golden belt buckles From shiny shirts, Wrangler pants and Fancy jewelry.

I am from watching soccer on TV And crying out GOALLL!! when Team Chivas scores From neighbor’s dogs howling, And neighbor kids playing street soccer, And horseback riders waving “good day” to us I am from families dancing to blasting Ranchera music at parties lasting all night long.

I am from a community proud of being Mexican And also from the stars and stripes And where the eagle flies.

— Sergio Rangel, Kulshan Middle School, 7th grade

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Song with Grey Shapes

Morning expands relentless.

Light is thrown rambunctious against the false shore of a coming storm. Awakening day heralds her seascape.

Hills sing on the sun in pink then peach tinted arias. The low tenor of their green, the baritone of the rocks meeting the constant battle of long traveled waves. Even in this post night air,

Sweet Lady Heat lavishes her languid bodice over us all.

My sentiments are echoed by the grey shapes swooping in and out of the surf, their fins surface in unison, and I am tempted to dive, leave this dry land, and join their symphonic grace. A deeper voice reasons – my flipper-less body will fall clumsy over their song. So I submit to the grace notes of observation.

— Kelly G. Ramer

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Dandelions on North Garden Street

Towards evening, shining silver globes… a vast field of dandelions back lit by the slanting sun, mature, fulfilled, glowing haloes gently swaying in the cooling breeze. It’s their culmination, moment of glory, a great communion before the separation when on currents of air each silken parachute sails away with its precious cargo out to where it may begin anew.

— Lorna Murphy

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Friends

My friends and I

could steal the sky,

and float around

until we’re found.

— Tom O’Brien, Everson Elementary, 4th grade

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Northwest Nightlife

Coyote’s yelp up from the wetland- countertenor gone native.

Freight train’s moan downtown- sonorous woodwind across the distance.

In deepest stillness the owl- downy interrogatory.

At first light against my windowpane- rain’s wet hush.

Light sleeper, night keeper.

— Edwina Norton

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November In The Northwest

The sky has come unplugged, the wind rasping like an angry saw. Four days, the same listless shade of gray. Who knows how long this storm will last, the shore dulled with driftwood and rotting kelp. I weary of these beige walls, my sheet-strewn bed, these cluttered shelves. No one to wipe away the mind’s haze, only the rain, the rain, erasing itself with ease.

— Jeanne Yeasting

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Distance

Ahead of me, two figures walk the beach, their bodies graceful, true to their shadows. It is easy to regard them. I gather a stone; a blue heron glides to a large rock. How predictable the world seems, your backs turned toward me, trusting, like friends. In the distance people are shoveling some type of clams. It hardly matters which, the waves unfolding, at my feet.

— Jeanne Yeasting

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In This Place

I was born of flesh and bone – a traveling bit of clay with a jagged little soul. Over the years of rough times and hard weather, I’ve been worn both out and down. And how I’ve lamented my losses. When all this time I was simply being wrought, pressed, and shined to a high polish until I was a perfect fit in this time in this place next to your jagged little soul now smooth.

— Barbara Davis-Pyles

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Untitled

When some people meet and become friends It’s like two birds singing together.

— Kayla Townley, Blaine Primary, 1st grade, age 7

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lummi island

outcroppings of bedrock and erratics strewn amongst the till; the insistent pushy blackberry, the solid old firs, ragged but anchored in deep; the stinging nettle thriving in disturbance – folk on the island, character deepened by chosen isolation and a clear lack of anonymity living in a confined, but very public, universe there is nowhere to go but round & round or off – all, somehow, making community.

— Luther Allen

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South Fork Valley

Almost home: See Katrina? Flower child – keeps bees; grows berries and beans.

Swing left: Ed waves, Stooped from milking cows, bucking bales.

Left again: Larry the Junk man naps in his truck. Heaps of steel encircle his home. He knows waste, the casting off of possessions, Loss.

Road’s end: Jim the bird-dog man spits, Smiles and nods. Protective father, loves ducks, long stories.

Veer right: Turn the key. Frogs sing. Horses rush the fence, leap and twirl. The city is behind me, Released like an embarrassment, A small stumble.

Stretch, breathe deeply, Wish that we could stay this way forever.

— Kimberly Roe

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Sehome, dusk

Lukebright sky is skin and vein

Translucent whatsleft barely settles on tree-tips on eye-tips

Spilling-open rolls of tissue paper light unfurl through not space but time then sop up leaking twilight

— Johanna Landis

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Railroad Avenue

These two tracks, like necessities and dreams, were once laid next to each other, so carefully, and ran on, away, and out of time. now, of this railroad only the street signs are left and the rails, recycled or covered with asphalt and cement, are useless memories. But the dreams and necessities still run through our lives, and in the heart of this place we call home, parallel and strong, and on and on and on . . . .

— Scott Stodola

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Place Value

This morning I will teach them arithmetic. I will have numbers and processes in my mind. It will seem simple but it will not be because today is the first rain after many dry days and we will all be outside, even in our seats. Reconstituting and relaxing notions of seasons going and coming will seep in around the problems of numeration. The showers are tentative but the whole sky is again cool gray and we will revel in it all because this is where we live and who we are. Perhaps today we will learn much about place value.

— Scott Stodola

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Survive

Community. A group of people trying to do one thing. Survive.

— Alex Check, Geneva Elementary, 5th grade

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham, Wash.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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