In Memoriam: Paul Zimmer

Four poems from the San Diego Reader Poetry Editor

Author

Joseph O'Brien

Publish Date

June 25, 2020

In Memoriam: Paul Zimmer

I. The Visit
For Paul and Suzanne Zimmer and Cele Wolf
With sunlight pouring through the windows, March
Retreats and winter’s windy shadows shake
The shadows’ fruit from changing light. The lurch
And sway of barren limbs (no leaves to speak
Within the secret ear of spring) now cast
Their shadows through the room. We visit there
And lunch on whiskey’s fire – a sip, a taste,
Enough to warm remembrance with desire.

That afternoon your visit was a gift —
To know that spring came early and put
The bloom of meaning to books and birds.
Our host, the town’s librarian, had laughed
To think that here the dance of drink and thought
Had found a way with words — a way to words.

II. Soldiers Grove Stanza
In Soldiers Grove, the Kickapoo has
Entwined among its piney banks
Both shady forms and greening mythos;
Both take as motto: “Thanks–no thanks!”

Where once the village taverns numbered
In double-digits, floods encumbered
The pour, and city fathers moved
To move the village. Once approved

The people cast their lot with science
To capture solar-paneled fire
On half a hill. Now higher and drier
Than shining bottled self-reliance,

Our thirsty tongues can yet recall
How shadows made the sunlight fall…

III. The Kickapoo
For Bud and Katie
A staked-out country rises up to stand
With true inhabitants. The native state
Of things is such that hope can immigrate
From ignorance to undiscovered land—
Beyond the claims that sinking fortunes spend
On river silt. The hand imagines it
Before the mind can hold its rich deposit,
Or reckon miles of it by heart.
The wind
Can speak such fluid poetry. Its sound
Can bend the Kickapoo with Jesuit
Canoes. As chalice rests with calumet,
A rambling river seeks to understand,
Its shifting banks, bowed like divining rods,
To tap into the common ground it floods.

IV. Blessing for the House of Zimmer
You were born of water’s hospitality
And made your presence felt in all the corners
That left the wintering shadows reeling.

Not everything that falls to grave and floor
Returns to dust — some things arise, sometimes
Derived from sullen rains and salted fields,

And ancient ways renew themselves, a floor,
A foundation, wall and roof – a little bit
Improves the lot and a bit of clearing waits

For sunlight’s touch as gold that touches myth.
Such is hunger, such is danger, such is greed.
But Word and Meaning bear their child, A Gift—

So three gods now come to introduce a hope:
Where sunbirds sing, the rain won’t dare to speak.

Joseph O'Brien

Joseph O’Brien is the Poetry Editor for the San Diego Reader.

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In Memoriam: Paul Zimmer

Four poems from the San Diego Reader Poetry Editor

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In Memoriam: Paul Zimmer

Four poems from the San Diego Reader Poetry Editor

Pop goes San Diego: Kenny G, Khalid

Michael Reagan, his own man – from Beverly Hills to White House

Stay in touch

In Memoriam: Paul Zimmer

Four poems from the San Diego Reader Poetry Editor

In Memoriam: Paul Zimmer

Four poems from the San Diego Reader Poetry Editor

In Memoriam: Paul Zimmer

Four poems from the San Diego Reader Poetry Editor

Featured Local Savings

Physical media rules: MUTT AND JEFF NO. 1

Anna Ballew will be in full Bloom at the Casbah on June 30

Stay in touch

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Find a story.

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