today
9 a.m. 15th Annual Plant Sale Bayside Grange
read >10 a.m. 35th Annual Daffodil Show Fortuna River Lodge
read >10 a.m. Peace Begins with ME Eureka Center for Spiritual Living
read >10 a.m. Annual Juggling Festival Humboldt State University
read >10:30 a.m. Learn How to Meditate Humboldt Area Foundation
read >11 a.m. Understanding Islam Arcata Library
read >noon Rainwater Harvest and Reuse Systems Living Earth Landscapes
read >2 p.m. Antigone Matinee College of the Redwoods
read >2 p.m. So Hum Tales Mateel Community Center
read >2 p.m. Open Jazz Jam Morris Graves Museum of Art
read >2 p.m. Irish Tea and Celebrity Cake Auction Fieldbrook Winery
read >2:30 p.m. Open Mic World Cup Cafe
read >6 p.m. Vintage Jazz (jazz) Chapala Cafe
read >6 p.m. Competitive Scrabble See Event Description
read >7 p.m. Open Mic Mosgo's
read >7:30 p.m. Zoe Boekbinder Westhaven Center for the Arts
read >8 p.m. Karaoke at Bear River Casino Bear River Casino
read >8 p.m. Karaoke Blue Lake Casino
read >8 p.m. Cabaret Arkley Center for the Performing Arts
read >9 p.m. Deep Groove Night Jambalaya
read >9 p.m. Piano Ben Six Rivers Brewery
read >previous columns
July 23, 2009
The Flumes
As we walk together for the first time, Suspended high ...
read >July 16, 2009
summer
tall the grass green tickles velvet the horses' noses ...
read >
Bittersweet
By David Holper
In the years before my brother and I were born,
my father bought a mandarin lime tree,
planting it just outside our front door.
By the time I noticed, it had already grown
odd, twisted and dense, its trunk;
bright orange and sour, its fruit.
In summer we would pick
the soft orange globes and squeeze them
into lime-aid.
This sour concoction we doused heavily
with heaping spoonfuls of sugar and ice. In winter,
the tree stood dormant, its bark a greenish brown
that always reminded me of a snake.
Odd considering that my mother once found
a three foot snake come up out of a hole in the ground
right at the tree's root.
Once -- but never again,
though my brother and I hoped to catch
it and charge our friends a nickel
apiece to hold its writhing body.
All these years later, my father dead
my mother, too,
I have no idea if the tree still stands
However, in my memory it bears this bittersweet fruit.
No comments for this entry
post a comment