Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Oregon Senior Poet Laureate

Robert Hoeft

ROBERT D. HOEFT, 76, Ashland, Oregon, is a retired instructor of English at the community college level. He has two children and four grandchildren. Robert is author of three chapbooks and one miniature book. He also won the Oregon SPL award in 2005. He was born on the Pisces-Aries cusp.

IF NATURE HELD A GARAGE SALE


You could buy small oceans
Only slightly used by whales,
Deserts with lots of good sand
Left in them, old mountains
Still high enough to provide
A splendid view, rain clouds
With ample drops remaining
To give a few good showers.

But it's the seasons I would want,
Summers shabby in old boxes
That when unwrapped would ooze
Multiple days of sunshine;
Apparently tepid winters
Carelessly packed in trunks
When unpacked would spew snowflakes
In tennis-court size blizzards;
Autumns, drab with dust, when taken home
Would radiate enough colors
To make your own rainbow,
And a spring, high on a cobweb shelf,
With only a little polishing,
Would gleam with enough hope
To light me to the end of my days.
Robert Hoeft
Ashland, Oregon