Mendocino Poems
I Never Had a Farm in Africa
but I have peeled an avocado with a spoon
in Mendocino where every year the whales
pass by, south to spawn, and later
bring their calves back north
to waves of delight from tourists
and locals alike
a languid parade
of misty vapor blows, big and small
their backs glistening in the sun
or charcoal boulders in the fog
it’s possible to believe
they know we are watching
longing to reach out, our fingers
gliding along their quivering flesh
sensing our own watery beginnings
the way love can delight and
reveal us to ourselves
even when passing through
to warmer or cooler climes
while perhaps you peel an avocado
with a spoon in Mendocino
and dream of a farm in Africa
where you might have found
your truest self
once upon a time
Winter Sculpting
in a workshop in the land
of redwoods and cool pine air
he caresses the possibilities
of what might emerge
from the wood before him
on the bench are knives, rasps
a mallet—deceptively heavy
because divining what has been
long-buried is not light work
a laying on of hands and a long
calculated cut begins the winter
sculpting, smoothing and slicing
toward a vision of what awaits
the shape that draws him to it
on a train that slices through snow
tall buildings of concrete and steel
she fills a poem with wood smoke
the scent of pine, the way the sky
reflects a silver ocean when
the world turns upside down
in a circle of Cyprus on the headlands
a hollow of tangled limbs
sprawling vistas
beneath his searching hands
her reflective images
the long-buried possibilities
of their imaginings
taking shape
Stumblebumming
LetterPoem to Linda Gracen
my last morning in Mendocino
red rose petals scattered through
a Cyprus grove on the headlands
velvety bright surprise, like finding you again
at Ten Mile, perched above white water
a vista as spectacular as your smile
and the amazing capacity of your heart
that cradles the walking wounded
their stumblebum migration to mental health
not unlike my own return each year
to my abandoned heart, all those
still beating along the coast that speak to me
of braver choices than my own
even the glazed-eyed highway walker
pad-padding to and fro in her flip-flops
relentless in her unfathomable quest
and dusty Spencer in decade-old dreadlocks
forever hitching rides between Mendocino
and Fort Bragg, and I wonder what if I’d stayed
what if I returned, what if I rediscovered
the rhythm of a heart not lost but merely
misplaced like our friendship along the
many miles I’ve traveled away and back again
always yearning for what gets left behind
on this meandering trail going no place much
after all
Sometimes a Fair Wind
for LaRue
Sometimes a fair wind
will send things right again
like me finding you
right there in Noyo Harbor
on the tethered Queen among
the gently tipping masts
old friendship renewed
in an even older boat
a sunken treasure salvaged
the way life sometimes allows
when something worthy resurfaces
a scuttled boat
a misplaced friendship
an ocean of possibilities
Sleep Sailing
a sleeping fisherman drifts
down the Mendocino coast to be
battered awake in a nest of rocks
grateful to have landed only
one town south in a boat
that will carry him no farther
like foolhardy lovers riding currents
beyond their notice or control
oblivious to the pending wreckage
of an ill-charted course
so much depending
on the random blessings
of an indifferent sea