Robert Shelby, Poet Laureate, 2008-2010

Check out the website of Benicia's Poet Laureate, Robert Shelby.

Portrait 2007 by Ronna Leon, Benicia Library.
For BLP's EVERY FIRST TUESDAY anthology.

POEMS

A Town Like Benicia, California?

(A little doggerel do ye?)

What, now, is a town?--a town like Benicia?

In some way or other, some folks are above ya

while, in some other ways, a lot are beneath ya

who’ll find easy reasons to say they don’t love ya.

A town has a place, located somewhere

on land that got settled a long while ago

for farming around Main Street or a Town Square

that folks set aside for commerce and show.

In this case, the main street was First Street. It split

East from West, giving order to number the lots

and then houses as far as seemed right to make fit

the builders’ demand for new lumbered plots.

Now, growth has no limit that growth can provide.

It takes a town council observing state laws

to lay out a circumspect plan and decide

how to regulate each thing down to hammers and saws,

else little Benicia might’ve swallowed Fairfield,

Vallejo and who knows what more to surround

besides the big arsenal, powdered and steeled

to supply strong defense for the west’s Union ground?

Towns like Benicia are scarcely unique,

yet each one will differ to manifold eye

that sees it as special. A gaze or a peek

will separate vistas from uniform sky.

In this case, Sky Valley is out of town, north.

The south side is stopped by straits of the River

Sacramento and Suisun Bay. What’s it worth

to know this town’s heart’s no stingy giver

but yields up its beauty continuously

in landscape and waterscape needing no pay

but to be cared for freely, as generously

we hear what it needs as commands we’ll obey?

--Robert M. Shelby, 5-18-10/3:12 a.m.

Oh, Suzannah, I’m In Benicia, Now!

Well, I came up from Berkeley,

many books upon my knee

and came to live in Benicia

for to be with fam--i--ly.

O Sacramento, River in my view,

I never knew I’d say it

but I’m in love with you!

You roll from the Central Valley

to be where I can see

your ever changing surface

flow by perpetually.

O Sacramento, River in my view,

I never knew I’d say it

but I’ll stay right here by you.

It rained all night the day I left,

I got here in sun shine;

at first I thought I felt bereft,

then knew this land was mine.

O Sacramento, River in my mind,

I never knew I’d say it

I’ll not leave you behind.

You came down Central Valley

to roll where I can see

your ever changing beauty

in per--petu--ity.

O Sacramento, River in my sight,

I never knew I’d say it

but you’re a great delight.

Barges, ships and sailboats

pass by both night and day

as on the hills grow wild oats

no longer in my way.

O Sacramento, River in my mind,

I never thought I’d say it

I’ll not leave you behind.

You’re running through my heart, it’s true,

you’re flowing through my brain.

You pour in every color but blue,

be cloudy, sun or rain.

O Sacramento, River in my view,

I never knew I’d say it,

I’ll stay right here by you.

I stood on First Street pier, elate, Page 2

looked westward toward the Bay,

Carquinez Bridge spanned all the Strait

but did not bar the way.

O Sacramento, River in my sight,

I never knew I’d say it,

but you’re my great delight.

I turned around, southwest I looked,

Martinez’ Bridge was there,

upstream, I looked and I was hooked,

all I could do was stare.

O Sacramento, River that I know

I never knew I’d say it,

I love to watch you flow.

It rained all night the day I left

I got here in sun shine,

at first I thought I felt bereft,

then knew this land was mine.

O Sacramento, River in my view,

I never knew I’d say it,

but I’m in love with you.

--Robert M. Shelby, 5-18-10.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Flying apples, falling parasols : an eclectic third selection 65 poems 1959 to 2005
• Leaves away : 81 poems a first selection ca. 1957-2003 with revised introduction and epilogue
• Music from the bones : 48 poems on ages past
• Quick Americana : 70 short poems
• Quick orientalia : 81 short poems
• Raining down dogs bouncing up cats: and a few birds
• Woman in a white cap : poems in memoriam

All are found in the Catalog and under Dewey decimal number 811 SHELBY