Joseph Zaccardi, as Poet Laureate of Marin County in California, edited this anthology of “poem, letters & other writings” entitled CHANGING HARM TO HARMONY – Bullies & Bystanders Project (2015). Included is my poem, THE RODEO:
The Rodeo
The Mariposa County Fair is a small affair
tucked into the Sierra Nevada mountains
where my mother lives. This year I take
my young son with his grandma in hand
to gallivant along the crowded paths
past lemonade and popcorn,
ribboned whirly-gigs, festooned baseball caps,
toward the wooden stands of the rodeo.
Metal loudspeakers hung from the rafters
ask us to stand for the pledge of allegiance
as ragged old men with cowboy hats
and cherub-faced little boys with pointy boots
all rise for the blond high school girl singing
as though the Iraq war depends on every note.
After a robust blessing for all the young men
still defending our country in the desert
where the Bible was born,
we settle again on wooden benches
and begin to cheer for the brave cowboys
shot with a Hiyaah! from their chutes
toward the defenseless calves running
wild-eyed toward non-existing cover.
My son sits quiet, till one rambunctious calf
manages to evade the lasso as the horn sounds.
The dusty cowboy curses his failure,
a hundred men sink to their seats—
but my son, enthralled, hops up and down
clapping for the four-legged rebel
snorting his way past the flailing clown
back to his own kind.