CEDAR CREST COVE
From a postcard, of a photograph
by Robert Parker, January, 1929.
A postcard
set before one’s eyes
to contemplate.
A photo of an extended dawn
taken at Cedar Crest Cove.
Where Line Creek, the source
Originating on the high mountain,
discharges snowmelt
at the widening inlet.
A water-soaked log,
a step and footpath,
floats parallel to land.
A wooden dock painted green
more of a bridge
over a gravelly shoreline
and shallow water.
Fixed with steel cable
abandoned from construction
of the hydroelectric project,
a rock-quarry underwater,
from a decade earlier.
A larger 40-foot wooden dock
on 55-gallon steel drums
that fueled trucks, cranes,
and the rock-crushers.
A hand-cranked gasoline pump
dispensed boat motor fuel.
Three boats were tied up
at the end of the dock,
like fish on a stringer.
All available for rent:
a white motorboat
with an in-board engine,
a red canoe without the oars,
(obtained at the grocery,
up the road on the hill),
a canoe with an outboard motor.
Further than the opposite shore
of the bell-shaped bay,
a prominent expanse of water
long and narrow. Dam 2A
built in 1919, raised the lake.
Well beyond the thick branches
of a stalwart Jefferey pine
in the near distance,
50-yards north of Dam #1,
the pointed, copper-topped
wheelhouse and siphon-vent,
against a profound scene;
fierce clouds vaulted over
pine trees and granite slopes.
A noteworthy breeze
coming in this direction
disrupted the still surface
of an unruffled sea.
Somewhere beyond Dam No. 3,
over Big Creek Canyon,
pink sky was exchanged for blue.
About the Author: Stephen Barile is an award-winning poet from Fresno, California, and Pushcart Prize nominee. He attended public schools, Fresno City College, Fresno Pacific University, and California State University, Fresno. His poems have been anthologized, published in numerous journals, both print and on-line. He taught writing at Madera College, and CSU Fresno.
As It Ought To Be 