Poetry by Joe Amaral
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot. —Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
He passed peacefully on an early spring afternoon,
his fruit trees in full bloom, winter crops seeding
near rows of fava beans ready for harvest.
Ninety-five years old bobbing for apples in metal troughs.
Some live a long life good enough,
others a good life long enough.
Mel lived good and long.
Dad, Papa, Vovo, Pa Pops: Melvin Amaral was born in 1917 Oakland.
He huddled in Castro Valley with family members
during the Depression, primarily raising chickens
and eventually building a poultry farm in Hayward
on an apricot tree orchard.
It was on Meekland Estate property
with an eighty-foot well from the Mount Diablo watershed
kept running with lots of care, oil, and a gravity-fed tank house.
He never tasted city water nor tested that well for chemicals,
trusting the earth underneath to sustain him.
Mel was an accomplished welder and inventor, turning
scraps of old machinery into necessary equipment.
He gathered seeds, tilled the land tenderly, and knew how to reap
and provide for his family, share with his community, and cook,
can, dry, juice, and compost his fruits and vegetables
to utilize every shred of woolen life he spun loose.
Mel married Mary Mendonca and they belonged to
the Pacific Growers Credit Union, and later the All Saints
Senior Center while watching their family grow and grow
like giant pumpkins and corn mazes, successfully combating
the weeds, wars, and economic obstacles in their way.
Mel and Mary belonged to Portuguese Lodges and camping
groups, loved to fish and smoke salmon in Fort Bragg,
clam at Pismo Beach, and travel the world, including the place
their parents migrated from: the Azores Islands.
They worked hard all day, but on weekends, they danced.
Joe Amaral’s first poetry collection The Street Medic won the 2018 Palooka Press Chapbook Contest. His writing has appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, Last Leaves Magazine, Please See Me, Rise Up Review, River Heron Review, The Night Heron Barks, and University Professors Press. Joe works forty-eight-hour shifts as a paramedic on California’s Central Coast. He can be found on Instagram @joeticmedic.