​POETRY 
          

Mission District  -  gritty streets  -  -  - 
                         Photo by Weebly.com                                    

The Owl on Sixteenth Street
by Elsa Fernandez

​​Lively diversity—cool and hip
Mission District—gritty streets,
warm fragrance of stewing pork and
green chilaquiles with epazote.
 
Mellow summer evening
The gods of destiny gift us
with parking karma fairy dust
 
We cross 16th street, dodge the cars,
Music and the acrid sweet smell of cannabis indica,
(or was it cannabis sativa?)
spice up the twilight hours.
 
Neon Roxie sign glows in the night.
Birth of the Cool—the Miles Davis
Documentary—an hour to showtime.
 
Stop at Dalva for a couple of shots.
A dark hideout bar, regulars huddle in the rear.
We’ve been here before—look around
for the permanent taxidermied residents--
the weasel at the back of the bar,
and the squirrel at the entrance.
I wonder who shot these unfortunate critters.
 
Where was the burrowing owl—he intrigued me
when I first met him, majestic behind the bar.
He might have been a female?
 
The genial bartender pointed outside         
to the coast oak on the sidewalk.
“We did some spring-cleaning last week.”    
The wise bird nestled in the branches,   
snowy wings spreading under the brightening North Star,
as evening comes to life.
 
Weeks passed. He’s no longer there.
I imagine he now lives in someone’s living room.

Author's Note:   Dalva has recently reopened after a 2 years Pandemic hiatus and I'm anxious to go back and down a couple of beers to celebrate the end of our Covid handcuffs.

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​​Elsa Fernandez grew up in Asia. She has lived in San Francisco since 1970 and never gets tired of this lovely city. She has travelled the world and still gets excited flying back home and to finally land at SFO. Her family is scattered around the world—India, Australia, Dubai, England, Ireland and Argentina. She is a political junkie and majored in Journalism and Political Science. She loves music and plays the piano quite well (one of her dreams was to own a piano bar in upcountry Maui . . . she would probably call it the Maui Moon!). Writing poetry is an emotional outlet for her.

Other works in this issue:
Nonfiction:
The Death of Free Speech
Inside OLLI: 
Book Review - Pandemic Puzzle Poems - Edited by Diane Frank, OLLI Instructor

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