For Sacramento Poetry Day – today – we asked readers for poems about where they live.

We got about 200 poems covering Placerville to Vacaville and Yuba City to Lodi.

We even got a poem from Kay Ryan, though it wasn't the Kay Ryan who happens to be the current Poet Laureate of the United States.

Darn.

Here, we present some of our favorites, along with visual odes to the region from The Bee's photographers. See all the poems at sacbee.com/livinghere.

Also, don't forget today's celebration of the Sacramento Poetry Center's 30th anniversary, as well as publication of "Keepers of the Flame," a history of the Poetry Center.

The event is at 7:30 p.m. at 1719 25th St., Sacramento, the California Stage complex.

– Carlos Alcalá

Tree City

Ten minutes ago, sycamore and elm commiserated, nodding, dismayed over shedding bark, wincing at separating branches.

They spoke lowly, with envy, of the immigrants, now second generation – the dogwoods, saucer magnolias, crepe myrtles – with their lyrical blossom drift.

They understood the ancient pain of cottonwoods, now diminished. How satisfied they once were with their fall amber burnishings. How ignorant then of the coming glory of the ginkgo.

– JoAnn Anglin, Sacramento

World As Miller Park

– standing between my eyes, focusing, making a bright landscape.

geese & gulls feeding opposite the Marina six geese in a sparkle of current letting the wind take them

lone gull coasts in over cottonwoods

muffled talk over water bounces on river rock shoring the flood

What is up to me? What is not?

kayak blades wink against snow-melt flowing past Miller Park

squirrel hops over sun-warmed rocks twig with new catkins in her mouth

– James DenBoer, Sacramento

Haiku

Romas on asphalt Sacratomato Valley It must be August.

– Judy Brim, Sacramento

ode to the sacramento poetry center (formerly known as the poet tree)

come gather round beneath this poet tree where aired thoughts of poets make its boughs shake and bend here at your wish are the sounds of their souls heard literally so if leaves bustle it's only maybe the wind

– Arthur Butler, Sacramento

Ashes

The orange glow traces a shadow on my window shade. I shudder as sirens run through me across the night to Edmonds Field. Powdery gray smoke seeps into every pore.

Around me quiet freezes – pierced by sound licked by flames gulping air as they race toward morning. Leaving only charred soggy remains at the corner of Riverside and Broadway.

Gone are sweet vacation days and nights planted in a wooden bench beside my father.

– Roberta Alexander, Lodi

Midtown

The sun is down, the moon up, the neon lit – this place is hot … it's midtown.

The club doors open, the music pours out: jazz, blues, hip-hop, honky-tonk – high-tone. It's midtown. The night is alive.

The girls' heels – click, the young guys wait for maybes … and the dance floor witnesses it all.

But this is midtown, the big town – Sacramento and the only promise made is that tomorrow will still be hot …

– William Gainer, Grass Valley

Sleeping Lions

When my mother first saw the golden summer hills of Vacaville she said they look like great sleeping lions

Into their tawny flanks my father dug 100 holes by hand planted orange and apricot, almond and eucalyptus

She dragged hoses from tree to tree, keeping them alive in the heat Somnolent, the lions watched their decades pass

Soon my parents will rest cradled in these hills under grass that ripples like windshot fur

– Katrina Hays, Vacaville