Proclamation Poem by Leo Briones

for Sofia Luz

On the day that you were born —
a husk dry wind blew across the LA sky.
In the Valley women spread chap-stick across their lips.
At a Farmer’s Market near Paradise Canyon people chatted
about fire weather and all the pollen in the air.
At Chevron Ravine, a little man who threw snake oil in the burning pyre
of Dodger blue, finally had enough and gave it all back.
In the Ukraine peasants and merchants braved an early cold
to protest for of a better world and the perestroika of the heart.
Outside the hospital, a man in a wheelchair told me I had a happy smile.
On the day that you were born there were no brushfires,
people returned home and cooked organic yellow squash,
DJ’s pronounced Dodger blue meant more than dollars and cents,
the world cooled from a long hot Arab Spring,
a bumble bee pollinated a sun flower,
and I understood exactly what the man in the wheelchair meant.