Mechanical rows clutching the hills, like graves; a warless Arlington. The arthritic fishing net stretched across the land in trusted farm fashion; stapled to the earth, fishless, awaiting wine.
Two empty miracles collide in silence.
Some mornings I take the backroads to the highway; the long way across, to the state road, number 37. It is a better drive, lovely in its hills and then across its valley plains. It covers more earth and sometimes gives one earth to look at.
Each morning I cross a different land.
Each morning I cross a different land.
A day before there was a stretch coming down out of the hills and starting across the fields where all things were obscured by fog; the famous bay-area murk moving. It drained much of the color from the land. At a distance it ended all sight though not all glow. Vision falling off in directions to grayness, or worse; eyes still yearning to be young. The fields of cows and sheep move past closely and quickly as a soft haze of blurred ghost.
Nothing at last is real, or again it is, and one could disappear into it.
Nothing at last is real, or again it is, and one could disappear into it.
On other mornings, with no tellable difference in weather, the fields are perfectly clear, crystal as suggested. Flocks of birds moving in their unusual unison, ripples of a single wing, pirouetting into and then across the light.
On yet another morning, further back, I saw three large birds hunting a flock of much smaller ones, all flying tightly, together just for now, enacting the odd dance of living; giving and taking, striking and receding - all a single poem, dancing for its life.
Mornings, then again at night, backwards always racing, I cross this valley in fog; darkness falling, rising... its grayness just the same.
The two lanes stretched out unseen ahead,
twisting all points into approaching mayhem,
miracles never colliding,
but instead only the enduring yellow,
yet ever herding us away
On yet another morning, further back, I saw three large birds hunting a flock of much smaller ones, all flying tightly, together just for now, enacting the odd dance of living; giving and taking, striking and receding - all a single poem, dancing for its life.
Mornings, then again at night, backwards always racing, I cross this valley in fog; darkness falling, rising... its grayness just the same.
The two lanes stretched out unseen ahead,
twisting all points into approaching mayhem,
miracles never colliding,
but instead only the enduring yellow,
yet ever herding us away
.
