The Heifer

Sometimes I think about the cows and how he
really loved them. Every post hole dug by hand,

the long, smooth boards nailed up perfectly. How he
spent hours painting the fence black with creosote

and oil, his rough hands and face flecked and burning.
Winter mornings he mended gates, poured corn feed

into troughs, pitched hay onto frozen grass while
watching froth form along their steaming, swollen

lips. I thought she was dead the morning he went
looking for the heifer. Running back to our

house, shouting for blankets, for a bucket, he
called Doctor Mathews and then grabbed the handsaw.

At some distance I followed him, afraid of
what I’d find when I reached them. Kneeling by her

head, her gray tongue lolling and still, my father
sawed quickly through the low fencing that trapped her

head when she was nibbling grass under the boards.
She must have pulled and struggled for hours. Her eyes

jumping in their sockets, big as golf balls, he
talked softly, stroked the coarse red fur on her neck

and waited for the vet. My father nursed her
through the night, and at daybreak the rifle shot

woke me. By the time I returned from school, her
body was gone; he never spoke of her again.

The next week he had the others hauled away,
let the fence tilt and fall into disrepair.

I’ve learned that gentleness confounds a brutal
man. And that suffering can spoil the meat.

History of the Emerald Street Poets

We originally met in Joseph Stroud’s poetry class at Cabrillo College in Aptos, California.  Some of us had been with him several semesters.  In June of 1995 Joe announced that he was going to take a year’s sabbatical and no class would be offered in the fall.

At the end of term celebration the following week, we were all talking about how disappointed we were that we would no longer be able to have the class discussions or receive ideas to improve our writing.

Phil Wagner suggested that we start our own critique group.  He started a sign-up sheet for anyone who wanted to join it.  We ended up with over twenty names. We signers met immediately and decided to meet on alternate Thursday nights.  The meetings would take place at Robin Straub’s house on Emerald Street in Capitola, hence our name, the Emerald Street Poets. We were pleased to have eight to ten poets come each time to make suggestions and celebrate our creativity. We produced a volume of poems about ten years ago called Harvest from the Emerald Orchard.

While poets have come and gone, we want to acknowledge our poets who have passed away, Phyillis Mayfield, Kathleen Flowers, and Virgil Banks. They will forever be a part of the Emeralds Street family.

Today we are a group of roughly fourteen poets. Most of us have books of our own, and we are now getting geared up to produce another volume together. This Phren-Z reading is a catalyst for that possibility.