June Selection #1

June Selection #1

Midsummer on the California Coast


Midsummer on the California coast,
surprised to find myself alone
upon the long wide line of flowering headlands,
the waves roll thick and constant, white on blue,
as if grandmother’s mother carded wool,
making neat rolls,
and set them in a basket at her side.

Still, no one can predict the water’s motion,
exactly, that randomness too wild
to ever catch, explain, pin down, predict,
impresses every gushing rock each moment,
and me, and diving seabirds all at ease.

The little crags are capped and crowned with flowers,
pale radish, and the succulent’s magenta,
the headlands wear a gown of short smooth turf,
a lawn for fairy dances by the moon.

I gaze, and turn. Behind me stands the mill,
- what’s left of it – not much. Its shrunken works
still send white steam from one stack to the sky.
The town has hunkered down. It is not starving
– quite -
– I feel a way,

a way to pray for life that is not begging,
a way to face decay that is not shrugging,
a place to place my hand where no one stands,
in curious twist and wash of rollers breaking –

---Deanna Hopper