Humboldt County

HUMBOLDT COUNTY

Slight rain
  falls cold
    across the windshield

As we bounce
  over the broken asphalt
    west to Petrolia

A stiff wind
  blowing the golden grasses
    making our way

To Cape Mendocino--

Forgetting for a sublime moment
  the troubles of this world
    where the expanse

of sky sea & land

Conspired
  to provoke bliss
    in our throats






DRIVING THE VALLEY

Taking the Woodruff cut-off
by chance at pink sunrise

Our eyes astonished
as blackbirds by the hundred

Swing across shimmering riceponds
back to phonewires





LUCID DREAM

Backstage
they primed me
preened me
readied me

For my big comedy show
at the Center for the Performing Arts

I took a deep breath
They pushed me through
The green curtain

Psyching myself
For a raucous ovation--

Every seat empty


FORTUNA

The cheap motel's low metal awning
Keeps rain out of our eyes
But pours it robustly
Into our EARS

November 04

Far beyond the headlines
And rumours of war
The middle-aged carpenter
Is hanging raingutters
On the backside of Round Mountain-
A fine November day
Bright under gold oak leaves
With long views of the dusky Yuba-
At 3 PM the sun got low enough
To illuminated a local scene,
"Manzanita and rock pile"
But the best was last 
Pink highlights of sundown fleece
Over the darking woods-
Crescent moon waxing in western branches
Driving the long way home.

she's very Zen
but hers does not point
toward illumination
it's just plain Zen

2010 quotes

Be the change
You want to see
In the world
                 -Gandhi


I long for man to repent
And be saved from his own immortality
                -T.F. Powys

All change is miraculous to contemplate
              -Walden

It is often said that my heart
Is too open for my own good
              -Henri Rousseau

Don't part with your illusions.
When they are gone,  you may still exist
But you have ceased to live.
            -Mark Twain

You ask the embryo
Why he, or she,
Stays cooped up in the dark
With eyes closed.
           -Rumi

He who knows others is clever;
He who knows himself is enlightened.
          -Lao Tzu

I am defeated all the time;
Yet to victory I am born.
            -Emerson

We spend our time searching
For security
And hate it when we get it
           -Steinbeck


There's no safety in numbers
Nor in anything else
              -Thurber

What you are
Comes to you
            -Emerson

Sky is the daily bread of the soul
          -Emerson


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