Fall 2008, Volume 5

Poetry by Juanita Rivers

If The Seasons Were Music

Would spring be a choir of bells with silver throats,
Ushering in each colored blossom and leaf?  Would
It sing accompanied by rain drop melodies
Against window panes?

Would summer beat a kettle drum or play a hot mambo
Or a spirited Souza march to celebrate
The birth of a nation?  Could a mid-summer storm sing
resounding baritone clashes with a soprano overtone
leading into another season?

Maybe fall would be a brass section,
with each falling Burgundy, gold and amber leaf
Ushered in by a single note, until
in a decrescendo of music, barely audible,
The whole orchestra lies in piles under the trees.

Winter might be a soft lullaby of flutes
Each snow flake falling, blanketing the earth in a
Comforter of white while a hush falls over the hills
And echoes in the valleys below.


Fog on the River

Fog cloaks the river like a shroud,
Hiding treasures below.
Stars fall from the sky
While a nightingale cries.

Hiding treasures below,
Touching the dark marble wall,
While a nightingale cries.
Feel the cold.

Touching the dark marble wall,
Stars fall from the sky.
Feel the cold.


BIO:  Juanita Rivers is enrolled in writing classes at Long Beach City College. She has published poetry in Verdad Magazine and The Long Beach Press Telegram. Her interests are novel and poetry writing and watercolor. She graduated from LBCC and the University of LaVerne.