poetry

Stars Stripes and Meanders

Stars Stripes and Meanders

unable to bring myself
to press flag stamps
on notes handwritten
to my students
we drove down the mountain into town
where the main drag
ironically had sprouted flags
overnight everywhere

puzzled by the timing
weeks before Independence Day
I approached the counter
to look over the placemat display
of current offerings:
frogs
flowers
rivers –
and did a double-take:
not just any river
Koyukuk River –
my Alaskan refuge –
my affection for it
so much less complicated
than for the ubiquitous
Forever flag stamp

as the clerk rang up
the Wild and Scenic River sheets
I said, We noticed all the flags in town.
Do you know why?
Well,
she said gently,
it’s Flag Day.

Like Gary Snyder
I pledge allegiance
to the frogs
and the flowers
and the wild, scenic rivers
to Taylor Hill
and Homestake Mountain
to blue skies
and bits of glaciers
to this one blue ball –
the only home
we’ll all ever know –
so salvageable
if we weren’t so
divisible

4 thoughts on “Stars Stripes and Meanders”

  1. Mom says:

    Amazing that of all the rivers, yours was included. The residents must be thrilled. Your closing was profound..

    1. AEOC says:

      Yeah, there are a dozen rivers on the sheet, but Koyukuk was the featured image in the list of current stamp options. I was really on the Yukon rather than the Koyukuk River, but I was in Koyukuk National Wildlife Refuge and Koyukuk Wilderness. Glad you liked the closing. This poem is partly inspired by Gary Snyder’s poem “For All”:

      Ah to be alive
      on a mid-September morn
      fording a stream
      barefoot, pants rolled up,
      holding boots, pack on,
      sunshine, ice in the shallows,
      northern rockies.

      Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
      stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
      cold nose dripping
      singing inside
      creek music, heart music,
      smell of sun on gravel.

      I pledge allegiance

      I pledge allegiance to the soil
      of Turtle Island,
      and to the beings who thereon dwell
      one ecosystem
      in diversity
      under the sun
      With joyful interpenetration for all.

  2. Carol says:

    Those flags were out for my birthday. I like you poem.

    1. AEOC says:

      Yes, when she said Flag Day, I thought, of course, Amma’s birthday! Glad you enjoyed it. We went back into town today, and the flags were all gone.

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