In the upper section of Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco, you will find spreading basins: large, level, human-engineered sandy gravely areas where, especially during rainstorms, stream water can slow down, sink into the earth, and restock the local groundwater.
In Kristen Ochoa’s “Spreading Basin,” such a place, becoming poetic, gathers emotion and memory.
Spreading Basin
It was raining when I learned you were dying.
On an all-night shift, my coworkers made a generous distraction.
I left unnoticed, slowly arriving to Pasadena.
In your quiet hospital room, the water tapped on the window.
Twenty years have passed. I have a child whose name would matter to you.
So much of time, our broken realities, soaked-in, shared,
Brought me back to Pasadena. Though you are gone,
It is important I knew you here and you knew me.
Everything you gave me, you inscribed with my name,
Objects to help me remember I existed, and so I did not disappear.
Even in your sickness, you were a holding place.
I live now above the spreading basin, where we parked and watched the rain.
I thought it only made a vast puddle, fell into the dirt and silt, and evaporated.
You told me no, stormwater is stored and soaks and spreads.
You said remember, it will collect underground and replenish.
— Kristen Ochoa
Kristen Ochoa lives in the North Arroyo and is a physician for the County of Los Angeles and the founder of the Chaney Trail Corridor Project.
Local News Pasadena (LNP) publishes poems grounded in current news events from the greater Pasadena, California area. Submit your own poetry here.
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