—May 15—Point Arena
north-coast morning fogs so thick
I remove my glasses to see
the rutted trail cross open fields
wildflowers
jutting here and there
gathered shadows
of pines
dripping
**
she comes out of the bedroom,
sits down against me
real close, warm
—fifty-five years
**
Miner’s lettuce, full blossomed,
smothers the magnolia’s understory.
So many, the m’s, couldn’t resist…
**
on the coastal road coming in,
bunch after bunch of purple-white lupine
and golden poppies
scattered on the bluffs,
watch the ocean
**
North-country coastal fogs—
fence-post crow-shadows shiver,
pasture wildflowers flash.
**
Buried under layers of coastal fog,
the lunar eclipse happened as if
we weren’t even there; but this morning,
blue sky and sunlight so bright,
even ocean-covered rocks
push through tides
to see.
**
—Fort Bragg
Standing on wind-swept shoreline,
unobstructed views for miles, reading
of redwood groves, here,
taken cove by cove.
**
—Report back:
Because our feet cover it, it sometimes seems
we cannot see the earth’s irrepressible transitions
to life and back again, it and its universe
the shared commonwealth of being and beings,
which ripples, revels and whispers
its endless presences—to us,
through our manifold natural and endlessly open
portals of awareness and attention—and in us,
through the often overlooked and misused wonder
of humans, our words, whose inner mapping magic
signals to us our own thinking and feeling,
allows an untellable intimacy with each other
and the world…
—from Emerson’s “Nature”
“…as water to our thirst, so is rock, the ground,
to our eyes, our hands and feet…firm water,…
cold flames… what health, what affinity.”
Emerson again
“ Other-world? there is no other world; here
or nowhere is the whole fact.”
and again
“…this is home—iron in our blood, a transit
of minerals ourselves…”
**
Three-needled pine, meadows
of open Iris, bluffs of pink buckwheat
and the lighthouse to the north
sending winds so strong,
legs are rendered unsteady.
Truly not knowing my real place here,
I plant my feet with what care I can,
try to share what I think I see
and to ask more than to say.
**
—Miner’s Hole Road
After awhile, the trail folds over itself
and me—mud and fallen trees, unyielding,
so cross-country, up the creased-grass trail
I now know goats use—a survey of the hills,
close-by coastline—the satisfactions
of jumped barbed wire and a climbed gate.
But most of all, the furtive glance
of a mom and her kid disappearing
behind the rocks—and just how good
some things make you feel.
**
A tic (has it been sixty years?) burrowed
into my shoulder—had to pull it out
with tweezers—I know, I know,
not tweezers—but there’s not enough
room for us both.
**
Hiked the edge of the neighboring flood-plain,
acres of farmland coming to meet the ocean.
Watershed rich, the trail flows with flora,
wild berries slowly reaching for ripe.
**
—Last morning manifesto…
On my last walk of our visit here,
a new trail for next time—walked
into the rising sun—coffee on the deck,
tiny puffs of seed-life floating by…
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