Nanci also writes short stories and her poetry has been published both in anthologies and online. Her artwork has appeared in numerous juried shows in the Sacramento area and in the KVIE (PBS) annual on-air fundraising auctions.
Our Birth Day
I, frightened
wearily straining my child-woman’s body
against or for you
(I knew not which)
brought you forth.
I was surprised
at the warm, wet mass that was you
and marveled at your smallness
at your aliveness on your own
as you were severed from me.
And now
on this celebration of our birth day
I humbly acknowledge
the woman you’ve become.
I marvel at our alikeness
and our unsameness
and your aliveness on your own.
From me you came
and my soul will never cease
its watchful inclination toward you.
From me you came
and from that first
stirring deep within me
there was spawned
a womb-deep love
that defies distance
and knows not
severance.
______
Tom Goff is an instructional assistant in the Reading and Writing Center at Folsom Lake College. He is the author of four poetry chapbooks; the most recent ones are Twenty Two (little m press, November 2015) and Sinfonietta (Rattlesnake Press, 2009). Tom has degrees in trumpet performance from Sacramento State University and the San Francisco Conservatory, and has performed with such ensembles as Golden State Brass and the Auburn and Camellia Symphonies. Tom is married to Nora Laila Staklis, an accomplished poet and artist.
Why I Play Trumpet
Because if there is climax in this life,
such as propels symphonic argument,
it burgeons by virtue of brass instruments
─the orchestra’s boldest beings, chief lawscoffs─
whilst quietist souls desire you kindly stifle
that giggle, stay inside your leaky tent,
desist from twiddling itchy thumbs you’ve bent,
make drunken fifes keep off our Duncan Fyfe.
Ephemerals of the trumpet sort? Lives gnat-
short, embouchures spent in facefuls of cheek pain
and lip-by-mouthpiece bruise; and yet the gain
to Mahler, Bruckner. Danger heat, report
of arms, clangor of bells. Skybolt, storm-glow,
last summons-chord that glimmers us where we go.
