James Baloian: IN THE SAN JOAQUIN

The warm tropical winds have finally
pushed a high pressure system
over the valley, and suddenly
the idleness of February and March

becomes a fury of Aries

blowing fire in each Ant

to catch up for the late cloudy weather;

Weeding, spraying, planting, tying and picking,,
irrigating, tractoring

the Ghost of the Bear
finally awakens
bumps his head
in the dark cave,
and each morning
through his transcendental cave,
feels the eye of the Sun
wake earlier,

and hears the birds

singing their songs
in the black/blue
and the Suncoming North 

the smells of Orange blossoms
in the cool evening and mornings

release her scent to the Earth

and by afternoon

lay still and yellow

curling below the shade

of the leaves

a small ball

of green, the eye hidden

in the leaf for December

and I wonder if I want to wake,
and go out into the world of working hands,
and faces that speak in the dust
and growing of roots and the fingers
of green brushing the windows
of lighthouses
looking out with a singular eye
the voice of Josha
on the lips of the Horn.

James Baloian

This poem has appeared in the Winter-Spring 1987 issue of Graham House Review