ROY CONBOY - POEMS

Roy Conboy is a Latinx/Irish/Indigenous writer and teacher who’s poetic plays have been seen in the struggling black boxes on the edges of the mainstream theatre in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, San Francisco, San Antonio, Denver, and more.  His poetry has been published in Green Hills Literary Lantern, Orphic Lute, and Third Estate Art’s Quaranzine.  His poetic radio drama Hue can be heard online at Barewire Theatre Company.  As an educator he taught for 35 years, 29 as the head of the San Francisco State University playwrighting program.

​We Swim the River

​We swim the river,
shoot the stream,
swept along
by desire for the sea.


Pools,
rapids,
shoals,
rocks.


Inlets,
marshes,
channels,
dreams.


Waterfalls that plunge
in violence,
mists that envelope
in seductive kiss.


Deltas that scatter roar
into meander,
mud flats that ingest swamp
and make remembrance.


We swim the river,
we are the river –
stream desire,
dream fire.


We plunge into
the quenching sea,
where question ends
as we.

​Redwood Memory

Return to the young groves
that are ancient,
where ancestors lie fallen
and silent.
My life is a spare set 
of their recording rings,
each glorious nation and notion
a hiccup in redwood memory.


Their wooden days 
are dwindling
if days are counted in eons.
The fog they bathe in
has retreated,
the inland seas
where they once waded
drained by shifting geography.


Before the hands
wielding chainsaws,
before the papers
claiming property,
they were a lawn
of red and green,
of whisper in the wind,
of canopy in the clouds.


Before the natives
gleaning and praying,
before the gigantic beasts 
sheltering in their sweep,
they were a memory 
of continents drifting,
of glaciers sojourning,
of oceans restless in dreaming. 


But this morning 
in fog and breeze
as branches sway and rub,
they do not think of history,
of riches or of misery,
of conquering armies
or violent religions,
or of striving after things.


This morning 
in shroud and leaf
they sample again
what’s warm and what’s wild,
give shelter without rancor,
revel in the beak that pierces,
in the owl
that sleeps and strives.


This morning in mist
they dream
of stars that once made
different pictures,
of an age of snow
that put them to sleep,
of fires that cleansed them,
of people that ravaged them.


This morning in mist
they dream –
the sap that wends,
the claws that climb,
the earth that caresses their feet.
The wind that sings eternity –
at the last
their shortest sleep.


​

​Apple Milagro

​Apples in the branches,
once green as leaves,
now are yellow as the sun.


What miraculous process
makes color from air
and million mile light?


What genius strand
thought up
that chemical way?


Pigmentation blooms
deep in the cell,
youthful in the fruit.


Till age and ripe
plunder the color,
deluge the dance.


And firm flesh
is flooded
with soft and rot.


Call it death,
call it vinegar,
call it cider.


Call it fallen,
call it compost,
call it begin again.

​Butterflies and Birds

Butterflies and birds -
cute and fragile,
tough and agile.
We watch them
flit and whistle
through shingle, 
leaf and thistle.


We buy cards,
share pix,
print their delicate,
flying images
on fabrics,
wind chimes,
summer dresses.


But twice a year 
the gossamer 
and feathered
launch on
epic journeys
without ice chest,
cell, or GPS.


From arctic to tropic
they soar and skip
over white peaks
and white caps,
across frozen tundra,
desert dune,
and night’s black.


Through predator
and pesticide,
hunger and hunter,
smog and typhoon,
some veer and fall
while millions more
hold true..


Beside these wonders 
the macho we
with our loud trucks,
our weapons, drinks,
shouts, and road rage
are pale, and wan,
and sedentary


We bluster
in our macho,
they hear the call
of ancient,
we break down
in curse and fight,
they give all
and take to sky.

​