The Compton Creek by Mike Sonksen

The Compton Creek is the Los Angeles River’s southernmost tributary, the only one that starts in the inner city. Its headwaters come from the street storm drains of South Central Los Angeles. Other LA River tributaries like the Tujunga Wash, Arroyo Seco, Rio Hondo, Pacoima Wash and the Burbank Western Wash flow downstream from the northern foothills of either the San Gabriel or the San Fernando Valley. The Compton Creek is more anonymous, much less known than the Arroyo Seco which runs next to the 110 freeway or the Burbank Western Wash which flows past movie studios. Whereas the concretized…

NONFICTION: A Map for Living by Elizabeth Amon

Bleached bones, picked clean by a lion, are left to bake under the East African sun, says the reedy-voiced British narrator on the nature film I watch from beneath a mound of covers. The abandoned bones stop the elephant matriarch in her tracks. She raises her trunk to trumpet a call of distress across the plain, lamenting the death of one once part of her herd. Elephants can remember more than 200 individual, extended family members and recognize them by smell or call, as well as sight. An elephant never forgets. From my sickbed, I watch the matriarch fondle the…