David Holper has done a little bit of everything: taxi driver, fisherman, dishwasher, bus driver, soldier, house painter, bike mechanic, bike courier, and teacher. He has published a number of stories and poems, including two collections of poetry, The Bridge (Sequoia Song) 64 Questions (March Street Press). His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, and he has recently won several poetry competitions, in spite of his contention that he never wins anything. He teaches English at College of the Redwoods and lives in Eureka, California, far enough the madness of civilization that he can still see the stars at night and hear the Canada geese calling.
The Six Things A River Might Say If It Were to Speak
I)
There is no such thing as a river.
The word you call me is simply a place where waters pass.
I am no more an unconnected thing than is ocean, air, you.
II)
When a swallow dips its beak for a drink,
the sky bends down to kiss the surface,
and this moment is reflected, like a tale told twice in joy, wrinkling the cloud’s face.
III)
All rivers are not metaphors, nor similes:
Forget what you have heard: I am life—and what living thing
doesn’t become something new as it empties into the ocean to weep salt?
IV)
If not fate, or some magnanimous hand,
what made the waters that you bend down to touch?
Did the waters make themselves? Do the salmon return to their ancestral beds by accident?
V)
All words about rivers ultimately fail us:
Listen to the sounds of the water passing over the rocky bottom in the rills.
Isn’t that the word that spoke us all into being?
VI)
In the end, you come to me for the same reason
the salmon do:
God tips you back into yourself when you seek Him:
Anyone who leans too far out over the water to see himself must finally fall through into
the depths for an answer.
Ken Letko grew up on the seasonal rhythms of Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay. Travel in the US, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Ecuador, and China globalized his awareness of the natural world and diverse cultures. For the last 25 years, he has lived in the magical intersection of ocean, redwoods, and mountains in Del Norte County of California’s far northern coast where he’s spent a portion of the last several summers as a fire lookout on top of Red Mountain. Letko’s education includes a B.S. from the University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point, and both an M.A. and an M.F.A. from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. While teaching at Bowling Green as a lecturer, he also served the Mid-American Review in various capacities, including three years as editor-in chief.
His published writing has primarily been poetry though he has also written and published extended book reviews, fiction, and feature nonfiction, including a profile of juggling in China published by the International Jugglers Association. His first full-length book, Bright Darkness, was published by Flowstone Press in 2017. His poems have also been printed in five earlier chapbooks as well as in a number of anthologies and magazines, including Bloodroot, Dos Passos Review, Earth’s Daughters, Lake Effect, Natural Bridge, Poem, Rattle, and Steam Ticket. Both the North American Review and Poetry South have nominated his poems for the Pushcart Prize. He has been a workshop leader, reader, and panelist in a number of venues: presentations at AWP conferences in Minneapolis, MN and Austin, TX; the Get Lit! Festival, Eastern Washington University, Spokane, WA; WordSpring, Butte College, Oroville, CA; the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Eureka, CA; Write on the Sound, the Frances Anderson Center, Edmonds, WA. He also annually helps plan and host the North Coast Redwoods Writers Conference on the Del Norte Campus of College of the Redwoods.
EVEN BREATHING
opposing shores
support the river
our night
time breathing
collects in a pillow
even though the ocean
tide reverses the river
our breathing produces
the bright cloud we
become on the other side
beneath the surface
loose rocks continue
their muted rattle
while the river otter
generates crayfish
shell mosaics
on a sandbar entrance
to the cave of in and out
the river authorizes
another sunrise
the poem pulls
the drowning poet
from the current
and the ocean
breathes us all
