EMail: ronnaleon@aol.com
Biographic Info: Ronna Leon has lived in Benicia for a substantial amount of time.

The poets’ picnic is held annually in the park.
The guests are the spouses, kids and friends.
Sometimes the sun shines and sometimes not.
Sometimes there’s vocal competition
from the swim meet next door
or the parade on First street with the blaring bullhorns.

The poets’ picnic is not a serious or high minded affair,
you and your doggerel are welcome to attend.
Poets munch on hot dogs and listen to the muse.
Poetry is given a fair airing out there in the park,
held up to the gathered who murmur and applaud.
Some poems come home sunburned
and others with a tan.
Some fade in the air and some resound.
I recommend it to you, the Poets’ Picnic in the Park,
you’ll go home fat and feelings fed.

THE TEN PEOPLE WHO BUY POETRY

Don’t count relatives, friends, ex-lovers
or spouses - anyone who buys 
your book
to find mention of themselves.

Start the count fairly with the teen
topped off in anger and angst.
He hides your poems in his backpack.
(He can’t believe how you get his grief
and see sex that way, almost human.)
Count as second English teachers,
Even those wasting in startup towns.
Third, the fragile housewives
awake at 3 AM.
Fourth, Fifth, Sixth - harried librarians,
bold immigrants, sex-trade workers.
Seventh: failed graduate students now
ad execs, CEOs or lawyers.
Eighth: the old who finally get around to what they like.
Ninth: All other poets,
Would-be-poets, poet people.

And Tenth? 
You,
My unknown, compassionate,
Generous new friend,
My secret pen-pal of the soul.

The plaster saint's bead brown eyes
Never blinked.
Not even as she confessed
That death still clung to her hair.
The stiff waves of his paint coiffure
Gather dust daily - a warning -
His dwarf life-size another, 
Likewise a chipped finger
Pointing to painted lilies
With scentless hearts -
Which while obviously everlasting
Are clearly not the lilies of the field
Christ had in mind
Grief takes root in flesh and bone, 
The surest prophecy of a life lived
With love.

Each morning, the lawn chairs are found in stately line
at the firm lip of the grass at the back of Hampton Hotel.
On foggy days, the white forms lie anchored like long-boats
to the shadow of the porch where consoling tea is served.
But in fair weather, thick evening finds them scattered
In cluster and clutter, up and down the steep green slope
that jackknifes into the calm cove sea.
In groups of six or three, intimate twos and solitary ones
the social arrangements tell stories of guests on vacation.
Magnified by steady twilight, the complex, abstract geometry
becomes a hard edged painting of summer life.

Theo, the old porter, whose jobs include
bringing the chairs back into line each night,
struggles with the heavy wooden skeletons.
He grips the thick slats, rocking them back and forth.
Drags, pulls, squats, pants, sweats, swears softly.
Dining room patrons politely avoid watching his work
which can be seen so clearly from the picture windows.
Only the children stare at the laborious, silly struggle
of frail black man and huge white chairs.

P.S.
That winter, at home, in bed,
a tall, pale, important man 
is pulled from sleep
by the dance of lawn chairs 
happily tumbling into the sea.

Motivated by men
I’ve
written college papers
ironed shirt collars twice
gone skinny dipping in broad daylight.
I’ve
served on committees
read company reports
and cared about the war.
For men
(their smiles, their generous approval,
their heady praise)
I’ve
hiked in Alabama
held the wrench for car repair
learned the lyrics to “Red Rubber Ball”.
For men
I’ve made beds and happily mussed them up again.
I’ve loved children not exactly my own,
I’ve cooked and cleaned, entertained,
listened and advised.
Seen the dawn and wished away the sun.
For men
I’ve known every kind and unkind feeling,
every sigh and moan
every joy and delight
And for men,
I’d do it all again.

In still milk cream rises.
In still water the pond clears.
In stillbirth a baby never cries.
In still night dawn rustles.

Still -- a waiting inactivity.
Still -- an overlapping same.

“Still in love, after all these years”

Still waits in
the quiet expanse of a woodland meadow,
the dusty pew of an empty church,
the warm comfort of a lover’s bed,
the familiar pattern of the stars.
 

Still may be practiced
in Zen sitting
Quaker silence
but arrives  finally at opening,
a taste of fresh cool,
the lightest touch of something new.

August 2004

Hydrangea may bloom blue one year,
white the next, lilac, and then pink. 
You never know.
It just shows how they feel about
the soil condition.
They're a moody lot.
Too much acid, too little, dry toes, wet,
you'll understand which 
next summer 
when there's no correcting it.
Some children are the same.
It's not until they bloom
that you can tell
just how they took to cultivation.

I hear the thwack that signals its arrival 
On my Driveway.
I do not rise. Do not hurry, as is my habit,
To spread wide the soft pages like a proud bird
Upon my table.
Do not make the dark coffee that usually flavors
The mysteries of important events.
I lie in the morning cool
And listen to birds squabble in the
Full blooming trees.
I collect the sounds of window opening, 
Dripping faucet, humming refrigerator, husband snores.
I picture the newspaper waiting there,
Warming, browning, finally crisping, fading 
In the righteous sun, unread.
I tell myself this news is already dead, 
The common history we muck through,
Somehow.
I do not want their news, their lives, their grief,
Crushing my fragile spring morning.
When my husband leaves for work, he takes the paper
With him. 
He asks, as he leans down to get it.
"You don't mind?"
No. No, I do not mind.