Los Gatos Jubilee: Poem—Song of Los Gatos

Editor's Note: We asked and you answered ... more than a dozen stories or poems about Los Gatos have been shared with us on our Los Gatos Jubilee Facebook page, or at the end of posts on this site for publication beginning Aug. 10, 2012, in honor of the town's quasquicentennial celebration. This is the second submission, written by Los Gatos Poet Laureate Parthenia Hicks, paying homage to the town we all love so much on We're joining the Museums of Los Gatos StoryShare project and sharing with them your contributions here.

Song of Los Gatos

On a plump August afternoon

Sweet as the juice of wild cherries

We see her

Jewel of the Valley

Gateway to the Pacific Rim

With her floor of silken grasses

And her ceiling of oak and sycamore

Redwoods and weeping willow

Her Creek Trail

Footpath of a million steps

Her hand-blown glassy lake

Where on any simple day

A small boat glides

Quiet as a breath

As geese form a circle around her

Fanning out like stars in water

Her parks – so many – fill and empty

With her people, her mourning

Doves and Great Blue Herons

Egrets, mallards, turtles and

Solitary sandpipers

The jewels within the jewel

Her history is etched upon her face

Earthquakes, fires and floods

That prop her up and build her character

Though all the links of time:

Orchards

Forbes Mill

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad

Mountain Charley McKiernan

The Opera House

A Brazilian soccer team

Netflix and the Apple store

A state-of-the-art library

At the close of a warm yellow day

As children hide in oaken groves

When all her parks are filled with echoes

The shopkeepers lock their doors as

The deer lie down like backyard

Dogs and wildflowers

Close their mouths

At the bluing of the moon

Her children begin to dream

While the spirit of the mountain lion

Stands like a holy sentinel

Guarding a prize

Where love is found and lost and found again

The unbroken song of Los Gatos lifts its steady voice.