Meet JON SEBBA of Valley Winds Chapter

 JON SEBBA has been a UTSPS member on and off since 1997. In 2013 his poetry collection entitled Yossi, Yasser & Other Soldiers was chosen as UTSPS Book of the Year. He tells us…that book prompted by my combat experience in 1967, has given me a new mission in life. I use it to show vets and others survivors of trauma how writing and poetry in particular can help calm the stormy waters of our memories. Jon has recently taken over as chair of the Valley Winds Chapter of UTSPS from Steven Leitch who is our new State UTSPS President. Since Jon spends his winters in Arizona, he is hoping to set up his chapter with virtual meetings which may be the way to go for us during the current pandemic.

 A retired design engineer he loves fishing in the beautiful lakes east of SLC, fishing and writing poetry. He feels that…I have learned much and my poetry has improved thanks to the help and kind critiques of my friends at UTSPS. If one is a good observer, one can find poems anywhere, or more accurately everywhere. This one was hanging out at sunset, near a bridge on the Provo River as it enters Jordanelle Reservoir:

Arcs by Jon Sebba

 Above the splash and ripple damsel-nymphs

dance in sepia tones, dragonflies hesitate

in and out of spider silk traces

dangling from dusty bones

of a rusty bridge arch over the low sun.

 

A lone youth, knee-deep in a pale-beer current,

twitches the rod in his hand,

sends a sunlit spark along a loop

in a wide oval arc that settles on water,

light-as-a-fly.

 

Like a conductor at the philharmonic,

he swings his arm back.          Twist-flick,

the point of light vaults higher and wider,

streaks from hand to hook,

kisses the wet surface

and lingers like a feather for a beat.

 

Suddenly, a spring rainbow

explodes in a splash. 

Vees radiate from the line

 

and race away.

 

He pants and wrestles,

trout twists and turns,

rod bends and bows.

The line sings out. 

 

The rod and reel play until the tired fish concedes.

He draws her to him, cradles the rainbow in water,

eases hook out of her jaw, 

 

admires her sleek lines,

 

then opens his hands. She gives

a tail-flip and smack that sound like, Thank you.

You’re welcome, he murmurs and sighs.