Emily Strauss- Two Poems

Heritage Days Bass Fishing Contest

Drove the levee road to Lover’s Landing

for the striped bass fishin’— the river wide

and slow there— stepped into the bar

decorated in beer pictures of tan antlered elk

and mountain brooks, the one-toothed

owner let me sleep under a wide shade tree.

Old bikers in the dirt lot were standing around

passing time, one leaned on his carved wood cane,

the pale fishermen were burned red, their women

drove the giant diesel trucks. At the weighing

tent tournament contestants carried their prizes

high by the mouth, joked loudly to the bystanders

watching and waiting, got their numbers recorded,

country line-dancing music blasted from the jukebox

inside competing with the jocular beer drunk-in-the-

heat Americans back-slapping and guffawing.

The filthy mongrel terrier slept splayed out

in the dust, time and traffic left far back

in the week— finally everyone asleep

in their fancy trailers and RVs bought

for just this kind of day, the cottonwoods

wafting white tufts silently on the grass.

Dying Plants

in each dream I find them:

dried, wasting away in some corner

forgotten months ago, it's amazing

they still live, the soil cracked

in their tiny pots, I must water

them immediately, perhaps

they will revive, I mustn't neglect

them again amidst the chaos

of divorce, moving away, the house

and garden a shambles, I remember

when each one arrived, tended

so carefully and now look at them—

barely alive, poor bedraggled stems,

shriveled leaves, they must look like

me, nearly hopeless but I shall mend

them, here's my watering can, let me

find them all, I won't forget next time,

here-- a sip of water, the dirt soaking it up

instantly, I can leave now.

Emily Strauss has an M.A. in English, but is self-taught in poetry. Over 100 of her poems appear in dozens of online venues and in anthologies. The natural world is generally her framework; she often focuses on the tension between nature and humanity, using concrete images to illuminate the loss of meaning between them. She is a semi-retired teacher living in California.