I have a canoe
down by Red Hook Brew-
ery.
Come do
my canoe
with me.
You can sit in the bow.
I’ll show you how
to pluck stuff from the water;
You might see an otter
or two,
from the canoe.
And when we are done,
you’ll think “That was fun!”
“Unusual, too!”
“Cleaning in a canoe!”
We’ll throw the junk away
we collect that day,
when we’re through.
Just me, you,
and our canoe.
I burnt my thumb!
I feel so dumb!
But I also have to say
I singed my wrist yesterday!
The logs we cut
do not fit
in the firebox!
(that’s the size of it!)
A 16 inch cut
will, of course,
let me put wood straight in
without using force!
But these logs were sawed
by some hand unseen
after they were felled
to measure 18!
So wrestle, push, pry,
twist, poke, force,
balance and jam must I,
and then, of course,
Sometimes my finger, hand, arm,
or wrist, will slip up and touch
that hot iron box!
“Does it hurt?” “Yeah, pretty much!”
But gas heat is expensive
and the wood, it is free!
Though I’m apprehensive,
we burn the felled trees!
And I have to suffer
and force more wood in;
there is no safety buffer!
I’ll probably burn me again!
Singe my wrist, arm, hand, thumb,
finger, and again feel warm, and dumb!
Funny,
How in the Valley of the Sun,
where my son
lives, works, plays;
where my mother and sisters
spend their days
with the cacti,
and dust, growing dry;
While on the other hand I,
alive,
live farther Northwest by choice,
in Puget Sound, where it’s moist;
but yet barely survive,
for I, too, am dry.
I cry
because of the dusty,
empty, barren part
of my heart.
It beats and lives here,
searching, waiting, wanting.
While in that hot Valley,
a new, unknown she
lives who writes
of dreamy delights
of what I only imagine
could/would/should be.
Should I turn my mind
and gaze
southward,
through the empty haze,
and wonder?
If I traveled there,
and met what I dared
hope for,
would my parched heart moisten,
grow, then burst asunder
with fulfilled glee
from me + she
in that parched, sunny,
yet fertile Valley?
Funny.
(The words stare out from the page,
although I’ve seen them in my mind before.
Have I?
I’m not sure!)
I’ve ridden – and ride — the bus
Not when it was dangerous
But when it is obnoxious.
Not for Civil Rights.
But for Earth’s Rights.
I am a revolutionary.
I’ve dug my hands deep
Not into plantations’ soil
Nor sharecropper’s clay,
But into the teaming,
Steaming,
Still hot, though winter’s day
at minus 20 degrees,
Compost heap,
That I first learned to keep
At ten,
And again,
At thirty,
To get my hands dirty.
And now
I know how
To show younger folk,
That they may pick up
That revolutionary yoke.
I am a revolutionary.
Though not the great-great grandson
Of anyone
Who history would honor
Nor remember.
Mine came across the water as well,
To seek a new life
in a promised land.
A land of opportunity they sought out
Of their own choice.
I follow that dream
Because I am the son of a father
Who has been to many mountaintops,
And rivers and marshes and forests and lakes
And said: “Make no mistake:
This is ours to preserve …
Or to eradicate.”
I am a revolutionary.
As the son of women who
Gave a hand up
When that’s all they could do.
Who, when others saw opportunity,
In times of greed,
Looked through with clarity,
And saw need,
And gave with charity.
Even now,
within my soul, I guess,
There is an inner vow:
“I can do no less!”
I am a revolutionary.
Lest there be any confusion
The earth,
and its people,
Are the roots of my revolution.
— Written after the Inauguration of President Obama, on my mother’s birthday, January 20, 2009
I read this poem at a committee meeting of the Seattle City Council in August, 2010. If you go to this link: YouTube copy of Inauguration Day Revolution Revelation at Seattle City Council sub-committee, “Words Worth”, 2010
Cyrano Writer: Musings of a Revolutionary Romantic Poet 
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