Jennifer Lagier
Jennifer Lagier, M.A., M.L.I.S., PhD, lives a block from the stage where Bob Dylan and Joan Baez performed at the Monterey Folk Festival in 1963 and Jimi Hendrix torched his guitar in 1967. She served as Area Coordinator and an instructor with California Poets in the Schools, taught at Modesto Junior College, California State University, Monterey Bay, Hartnell College and Monterey Peninsula College. Jennifer has published twenty-four books and has work appearing in a variety of anthologies and literary magazines. A former editor for the Homestead Review, she now edits the Monterey Poetry Review and helps publicize Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium readings. Website: jlagier.net, Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JenniferLagier/
Clamming Expedition
We travel northwest by caravan.
Uncles and cousins pile into Sharkey’s Ford Bronco,
my father’s International Scout, head out before dawn.
Excitement builds as we cautiously navigate
Highway 4, along narrow Delta levees,
through thick tule fog.
We pass through Petaluma, Bodega Bay,
arrive at our destination,
Dillon Beach and Lawson’s Landing.
Parking among sand dunes, we unload our gear.
Kids wear rubber boots, faded jeans, layers of sweatshirts,
stocking caps that make us appear like refugees
dumped ashore by Russian trawlers.
At the lowest of tides, we shoulder shovels,
and gunny sacks, plod around tide pools,
across slippery mud flats.
Retracting clam necks squirt from soggy sludge,
reveal buried colonies of mollusks.
We dig and dig, fight incoming water,
lay belly down in smelly muck,
use both hands to pry loose giant gapers.
At day’s end, we peel off wet, sandy clothes,
use public restrooms to take quick, cold showers.
Dad treats us to a family-style dinner
at our favorite Basque restaurant in Occidental.
We sleep all the way home,
dream happily of our grandmother’s
hearty red chowder.
