In Memory of a Poet

Yesterday I went to a Memorial Service for a man who made a difference in so many people's lives with his amazing capacity for words.
Don Emblen was 90 years old when he passed away, but when I worked in the coffee shack at Pacific Market in Santa Rosa, I always thought he was a lot younger, and I wished he was my age because of what he shared with me and the whole world.
Yea, I had a little crush :)
He was a Navy man, an English teacher, a loving husband and father, and what I didn't know is that he played the accordion (so cool!) He was the Poet Laureate for Sonoma County, and the way he connected words was magical.
Don drove for Volunteer Wheels. I loved his blue Volvo! He came by at least once a week. We would chat a bit and then he would take his coffee to a distant table, smoke and write. I loved seeing him sitting down there, solitary - writing something wonderful about a moment in his mind.
One day he came and asked me, "What happens to your hair in the fog?"
He came back a few days later with this:

"Pedestrienne"

That girl with the carroty hair down her back
walking calmly up the street
may have drifted down from an autumn tree-
a maple or pistachio-
so natural she seems, so unaware;
her mass of curls, crimped tight by the cold,
flames in the foggy air and warms us all.

Through the years Don wrote me some wonderful poems. When I moved to NYC we became pen pals. I would send him little paintings and stories of what I'd experienced that day; he would send me his latest poem. I treasure these gifts, and feel so lucky to have known him.

Yesterday at the Memorial I was taken aback by my emotion. Today as I walk around my apartment and read the poems he wrote me, up on the walls, in journals... it is all flooding back.


Here are a few more:

"The Girl At The Coffee Kiosk"

Her unhesitating smile--
like stepping early
into the garden,
sparkling still with dew,
and a hummingbird
touching flower after flower,
then zooming up
for a mid-air pause
to look at the whole,
the shining, aromatic whole,
this morning in June.


"Nicki"

At first I thought I saw
a dance of butterflies--
a flock? a bunch? a gaggle? ...
no; a dance will do)--
delaying me on the road to business.
Then it was a fist of marigolds
nodding to a lilting sort of song
as fresh as rosebud scent,
a waft across my way.
It was, in fact, a smiling red-haired girl
reminding me of a garden path
I might have trod.




I feel so honored and blessed to have known him.


Don Emblen
October 5, 1918 - April 24, 2009