​POETRY    
          

Ready for whatever I found there this summer of freedom  -    photo by Weebly.com                                                    

Passing My Swim Test in the Freedom Summer
​June 14th to August 20th, 1964
by  Karen Marker

​​​Ohio had more Presidents than any other state,
six I’d reported proudly in careful cursive the year
I turned nine. Some were teachers, newspaper reporters,
others grew up on small farms. Two had been shot.
 
We had Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers
and our teacher taped David Troup’s mouth shut
for asking too many questions. At our public school
we covered our heart to salute the flag, every day
 
bowed our heads to repeat the Lord’s Prayer. Our teacher
didn’t talk about bus boycotts, churches burning, segregated
swimming pools. We had no coyotes howling, no mountains
to climb, no bald eagles soaring with views of storms to come.
 
In Silver Lake we just had a slew of baby bunnies, chipmunks
crossing unfenced backyards, a drowsy sun rising to a chorus
of cardinals, ending in nights, star-studded and silent,
that summer of 64 when I was forgetting everything
 
I’d learned in 3rd grade, my allegiance cannonballing
off the dock into blue green lake waters. I was remaining
under as long as I could, opening my eyes in the dark,
rising up covered with shimmers. I had passed my swim test,
 
had the card to prove I could do three types of leg strokes,
arm strokes, a standing front dive, a running jump,
tread water, scull for ten yards, I was stronger than ever,
planning how I’d make it without lifeguards,
 
taking off to the marshy unsheltered side,
ready for whatever I found there this summer of freedom
when I hadn’t yet heard of college students going south,
three killed in Mississippi trying to register voters.

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​​Karen Marker submits poems to Rattle’s Poets Respond (to the news) and reads this poetry on the open mic with RattleCast. This past May she was a featured reader for Rivertown Poets out of Petaluma. Karen was honored to win first place prize for an essay, “Ruth in the Redwoods,” in the 2021 Keats Soul Making contest and that one of her poems was chosen to be in the Kent State University Libraries Special Collections and Archives. Karen is also grateful that she had the opportunity to work with the Young Writers Program through Santa Cruz’s Cornerstone Project, and to work with so many talented poets through PandaPoets and through OLLI including Kathleen McClung, Diane Frank and Jannie Dresser.

Other pieces in this Issue:  
Poetry:
Customer Service
Going Back to Work in Retrospect
Custodian of the Light in San Francisco

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