I grew up on the delta,
Tributaries of San Joaquin...
The suburbs a slice of heaven,
Downtown dirty, unsafe and mean.
Our neighborhood dead ended
On abandoned Indian land...
Encroaching elegant Oak Groves,
Lacking any environmental plan.
Our homes flooded in the winter,
Victims of Sierra snow pack overloads,
Rice paddys in the early spring,
Provided millions of baby toads.
The weather when school started,
Was on average, one hundred ten...
No one had air conditioning,
In their homes or cars back when,
Dry creeks around our houses,
Smelled of rotting common carp...
Bull frogs spent the night playing bass,
While the crickets played the harp.
Years later, the town built levees,
Neighbor's homes filled with new blood...
Yet how I miss the oak groves,
The heat, the toads...the flood.
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