Buena Vista (with edit)

[indar]

edit: 


I tore down the board privacy fence
and opened up my piece of overlook.
All night lights swim through high-density
housing at the bottom of the canyon.
Up and down, to and fro, headlights,
tail lights, brake lights, shimmer
in the near atmosphere.

Further up the terraced far side
lights slide like beads along a string
stop and start, obedient
to intermittent red and green.
Above the rim, seemingly afloat, detached
from earth, glows a mega cross
erected by Our Savior Evangelical Church.

The Walmart, built on landfill, is open all night
for those who pull the late shift I suppose:
its a super store with groceries
and a Burger King. Who watches
their children I wonder, while they work:
those people of the traveling lights?

Chevron gas has a taco shop,
their sign twirler at the intersection
has grown old in the eighteen years I've lived here.
Lately he's been sitting on a folding chair.
The dancing cow with the sign that says
eat more chickin has disappeared.

Once there was a waterfall feeding fresh
to the lagoon. Egrets stood in wetland shallows
and hidden in surrounding willows the tents
and shopping carts of those who frequent
freeway exit ramps with cardboard signs:
please help, anything will do.

A need for low cost housing the city said, baffle the flow
against potential flooding: developers may build there.
Buena Vista Creek declares a billboard: units start
at five hundred thousand. But the creek is gone.
Are they all down there, those who shop, twirl,
ask for help, work at night, dance by day:
in the dark, are they all down there
snug behind those canyon lights?

*****************************************************************************


This is one of the NaPo poems originally titled "Midnight's All A Glimmer". One of the few 2021 efforts I think is worth editing and tinkering with. The last 2 stanzas are additional

I tore down the board privacy fence
and opened up my piece of overlook.
All night lights swim through high-density
housing at the bottom of the canyon.
Up and down, to and fro, headlights,
tail lights, break lights, shimmer
in the near atmosphere.

Further up the terraced far side
lights slide like beads along a string
stop and start, obedient
to intermittent red and green.
Above, seemingly afloat, detached
from earth, a glowing mega cross
erected by Our Savior Evangelical Church.

The Walmart is open all night
for those who pull the late shift
I suppose: its a super store with groceries
and a Burger King. Who watches
their children I wonder, while they work:
those people of the traveling lights?

The gas station has a taco shop,
their sign twirler at the intersection
has grown old in the eighteen years I've lived here.
Lately he's been sitting on a folding chair.
The dancing cow with the sign that says
eat more chickin has disappeared.

Once there was a waterfall feeding fresh
to the lagoon. Egrets stood and the tents
and shopping carts of those who frequented
the freeway exit ramp with cardboard signs:
please help, anything will do.

A need for low cost housing the city said,
baffle the flow against potential flooding.
Buena Vista Creek development: units start
at five hundred thousand. But the creek is gone.
Are they all down there, those who shop, twirl,
ask for help, work at night, dance by day:
in the dark, are they all down there
snug behind those canyon lights? 

[AlienFlower]

Linda, this is such powerful visual stuff, emphasized by your title and that strong opening, “I tore open…”

A few thoughts/suggestions:

• S1, spelling of brake lights.
  
• “Above” in S2 feels awkward, not your style.
  
• S3: Could you lose the Walmart bit? It seems to halt movement for too long.
  
• S5, is it the lagoon where egrets stood? I can’t visualize the connection with the freeway exit ramp.
  
• S6 change flooding to floods?
  
• S6 enclose "those who shop, twirl, ask for help, work at night, dance by day: in the dark” in dashes.
  

Love the ending. “Snug” is such a perfect word.

Thanks for this!

Jackie

[Matty11]

lights slide like beads along a string

Remember this Linda, the 'folding chair'. NaPo was a 'deluge' so nice to revisit and find some more gems like the bead line. In terms of revision/addition: I rather like 'glimmer' in the original title, set up the all night light; also thought it connected to that false light of hope, low cost housing, and  the high priced reality. Was it Gatsby that chased the incorruptable light, the pursuit of which corrupted?

best

Phil

[indar]

Thank you both Jackie and Phil,

Jackie, seriously: break lights? Well to be fair I do have a tendency to back into posts and such. At least that one is easy to fix.

For some reason the walmart bit seems important to the theme of this poem but I think I need to develop it more. The bottom of the canyon was wild when I first moved here almost 20 years ago. There was a 7 drop waterfall sacred to a local tribe and an historical hacienda, part of a land grant to a Mexican family by the governor of Mexico when this area was still Alta CA (part of Mexico obviously). A strip mall and Walmart was built on higher ground. But developers were itching to get their hands on the open land at the bottom of the canyon. "No" said residents, tribes and the hereditary land grant family. A fight ensued. The canyon floods on rare occasion said the city--can't build there. We'll put baffles up to divert the flow said the developers and we'll offer affordable housing as part of our plan. The inevitable happened. Mixed apartment buildings, condos and lavish single housing units. A few apartment units were underpriced to meet the "affordable housing" commitment and spoken for before the building was finished and the rest was ridiculously high priced. The entire canyon floor is built solid--strangely beautiful at night but still---

The homeless encampments have moved further west, there are underpaid workers scrambling for a living who couldn't afford to rent a dog house on these properties and the wetlands that once supported all manner of herons, ducks, egrets etc are gone. The Walmart shoppers etc. probably don't live in that housing.

[indar]

Oh and I meant to say Phil, the original title is a line from a Yeats poem. I changed it because I wasn't certain about using it. I prefer it as well. 

The Great Gatsby - Gatsby Believed In the Green Light(Final Scene) - YouTube

 

[Colm Roe]

These stood out for me.

Further up the terraced far side
lights slide like beads along a string
stop and start,

shimmer
in the near atmosphere.

This is a substantial poem Linda. All the detailed observations (for an outsider like me the Walmart stanza adds to the identity of place) pull me in and immerse me in the Americana of it all. You build the premise so well and the conclusion is excellent. As a social commentary your concern (for man and beast) feels honest and genuine. In the two opening lines I feel a real sense of rage at the injustice that follows...the impact of these lines are only apparent later in the read; but what an opening!
I so enjoyed this poem.

[indar]

Hi Colm,

Thanks for the positive and insightful comments. I have been in the process of editing this one to clarify some of what I'm trying to say, particularly in the last couple of stanzas but I wonder if now its getting to prosy. 

[Colm Roe]

Hey Linda,
When I said 'for man and beast' I did of course mean the environment as well.

The edit doesn't really change the poem too much.
The addition of 'Chevron' probably means more over there. I can only assume they don't have a great environmental reputation.
Walmart being 'built on landfill'...this edit is effective, it's now doubly unpleasant.

The dancing cow with the sign that says
eat more chickin has disappeared.
The misspelling (I know it wasn't yours) doesn't bother me as much as the idea of using one animal to promote the eating/death of some other creature. (Even worse though is the use of an animal to encourage us to eat more of themselves)
Anywho, these lines hold more weight for me. A metaphor for the deceptions and misdirections used by the developers to get planning permission aren't needed anymore...their 'work' is done!
Still enjoying this poem. It's hard to reduce the prose when you really want to infuse your ideas into people's hearts/heads as effectively as you'd like.

[Colm Roe]

Also, there's something biblical about the poem? Maybe that's because I'm reading American Gods, while watching the series, and watching Preacher Or maybe it was just the egrets.