Behold the Rising Tide

Some turning point, whether it was the June 15th big moon event, or just some switch of summer that turned the faucet to hot and hell yeah, everything's been a little better lately, a little more golden. The work on the novel is moving along, and so as a reward, I took myself and my ma to the beach. I found a note I wrote to myself in my novel notebook that said, "Stay brave & open." Ok.

This guy snuck up on us. I defeated him and then put him in my pocket.

Limantour Beach (by Point Reyes Station) was 74 degrees and poetry-worthy weather.

I like grass.

All the real green grass of the real world was real pretty.

The day made me think of Robert Hass, one of my favorite poets, and his poem, "Interrupted Meditation" that ends this way.

"Everyone their own devastation. Each on its own scale.

I don't know what the key opens. I know we die,

and don’t know what is at the end. We don’t behave well.

And there are monsters out there, and millions of others

to carry out their orders. We live half our lives

in fantasy, and words. This morning I am pretending

to be walking down the mountain in the heat.

A vault of blue sky, traildust, the sweet medicinal

scent of mountain grasses, and at trailside—

I'm a little ashamed that I want to end this poem

singing, but I want to end this poem singing—the wooly

closed-down buds of the sunflower to which, in English,

someone gave the name, sometime, of pearly everlasting."

Golden State

I returned home from Southern California where we moved my grandparents into a new apartment. It was boxes and lifting and sorting and pictures and stories and stories and stories. Stiff upper lips and long lungful sighs. After a nine hour drive with my Ma to my favorite county, I tried to return to my writing desk (a kitchen table that looks out on the oaks, with one particular finch that looks in on me). But, the brain kept swirling. And so I went for a walk in the valley. Made some big wishes for some good things. I made some wishes for you, too.
The fish looked thick and fat in Lake Sutton. And the summer boys and girls were out with their bright striped towels, fishing poles, dirt bikes, and early summer crushes on one another. They nodded sweetly as I went passed and I noticed I was no longer one of them.
The rattlesnake grass is sneaky on the hillside and you can hear its yellow tremble in the wind. There are so many things to love in this world. Oh, how to balance this living and dying we do. How to be quiet long enough to hear yourself breathe, and how to foster that long loud echo inside of you that keeps returning and returning the world.