Santa Cruz Poets, Santa Cruz Inspiration: Rosie King

Here Hear Incessant tinny crickets someone’s named tinnitus ringing high-pitched in the ear, sotto voce allelu-u-ia in the wake of last night’s choir, crunch of radish and romaine, meets the bubble-bump of eggs boiling, bird cheep, long swish thunk thunk of car down the road with boom-box blasting, squishy slaps of wetsuits, squeals of laughter, constant rush-hush of waves on the shore, faint woofing, yelping, bang of screen door, mommy, where’re my . . .? flip-flops flapping, then these rackety scratches rolling around the corner, skateboards, neighbor’s wind-chimes, more hammering with banter in Spanish from the roof out back, high up, a small plane’s buzz, and this scratch scratch of writing, clump it in a notebook for later . . . the sky clear blue now, my feet tell me, move, out the door, and happily the weeds are calling— tickly foxtails, pungent fever-few, the tiny orange not-so-scarlet pimpernel, the stringy-rooted runners to get down on my knees to— and with a leaf of mint for taste— in the pulling of weeds merciful silence. Rosie King grew up down the road from Theodore Roethke’s family house in Saginaw, Michigan, had his strict sister, June, for 9th grade English, and went on to graduate from Wellesley. She moved west in 1966, taught at San Francisco State and UC–Santa Cruz while writing on Shakespeare and the late poetry of H.D. for M.A. and doctoral degrees. Her broadside poem for the Roethke centennial, “I Flew Low Over Gratiot Road,” and her first collection of poems, Sweetwater, Saltwater, published in 2007, are available from Hummingbird Press. Local Poets, Local Inspiration, edited by Robert Sward, appears monthly in Santa Cruz Weekly.

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