The Olivette: A Collection of Poems
by
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Crystal Rock
Sunday you stretched sports gear spanning the
Epoch rock and chose handled fishnets to troll
And twirled the shoals, changing your strategy,
Dragging aggressively, paleontologists at work
Cataloging copious harvest, identifying species.
From the Platypus genesis you fashioned bands
Of duck feathers to your foreheads and whooped
Like Indian warriors chanting before a battle.
Monday you selected from your tool array
A screened sieve tambourine, dancing it across
The twinkling water scooping a tremulous
Water spider specimen which had prior been
Skipping nonchalantly unaware, predestined.
Fate, he adorned the end table in our cottage
Under a lamp suspended with an oxygenation
System in bioluminescence, a lone tragedienne.
Tuesday wearing your Speedo bathing suits,
Psychedelic against the mutating woodlands,
You were Egyptian scarabs darting about on
Pleistocene age rock, new millennium children
Wearing butterfly sunglasses and filling empty
Shells with rare pearls, prancing in royal garb
Wearing crowns, an old stick transformed to
Sword, a knight and his lady from Camelot lore.
Wednesday I watched you cast your lines with
New fishing poles sitting quietly, expectant,
A sly pair of elves on your mushrooming rock.
One or the other of you would feel the bite and
Reel in a bass or sunny and saying 'cheese'
Would pose for the camcorder and Polaroid,
Mimicking models on a glossy magazine cover,
Then compassionately release them to swim free.
Thursday outfitted, rigged in your swimming
Goggles, minnows were at great risk, deftly
Lured into sand pails in a whirlpool of swish,
Transferred by waterfall into a shallow dish
For enthralled viewing where a teeming surge of
Aquatic plankton remained a live engulfment
Nestled in a cleft of rock near the embankment
Path where it was visited by invited celebrity.
Friday your big prize was a giant toad anchored
Across the crown of a galvanized bucket, lively,
Stretched over the diagonal of it, cloaked as a
Frog, though you said its warts labeled it surely
Amphibious, this specimen was clearly terrestrial,
Legs bent at the knee joint, a toad in its squat stance;
You speculated a disguised prince waiting for a kiss
From a long sleeping princess under the mountain.
Saturday following a paintbox sunrise dressing lake
And sky in brilliant vermilion, washing pink coral
Over the roof of our cottage and streaking first light
With orange, wearing Snow White plastic slippers
And Lion King rubber thongs you solemnly marked
Your territory naming it forever Crystal Rock and
Sadly said farewell till next vacation's holiday,
Then turned with earth's axis away from summer.
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About the Book
The Olivette
B.C.K.
About the Author
Educated at U.C.L.A., Marjorie Webster Junior College and Wayne University, Barbara Challis Koch has studied Magazine and Feature Article Writing and Creative Writing. A poet for many years, The Olivette is her first published work. She is on the Executive Board of Directors of The Twentieth Century Club, a member of the Library Committee, Book Discussion Club, Adventurers Investment Club, Lecture Series Committee and Questers, a national organization for the preservation of historical architecture, landmarks and American heritage. She is President of the Literary Club of Bellevue and is a member of The Sewickley Women's Club, The Pittsburgh Symphony Association, Pennwriters of the Commonwealth and is a sustaining member of The Junior League of Pittsburgh, Inc. In 1969 she was named a Volunteer of the Year by the Junior League for her work with Children's Theatre and Creative Dramatic workshops with emotionally disturbed children at Pittsburgh's Pressley House. In 1976 she adapted a script and directed the production of "Hill By The River" a bicentennial community celebration. She founded and was President of Hill By The River Players and directed "Our Town". She has been an actress, a color consultant and wardrobe coordinator with Color I Associates. Mrs. Koch is a past President of Ben Avon Heights Community Club and was President of the Avonworth PTA. She is a member of The Community Presbyterian Church of Ben Avon where she founded Beacon, a teen program addressing the issue of drugs in the late seventies and early eighties, served as a Deacon, President of the Women's Association and is an Elder and Trustee. She resides in Ben Avon Heights with her husband, John and is the mother of three grown children and has two grandchildren.