Vista By The See

March 08, 2010

It was still summer but the whiff of the unstoppable march of daily mornings air released Mother Nature’s secret that fall was drawing closer. ‘R’ and I were on one of our loosely planned weekend adventures. This one was another of her ideas really and one I had looked forward to by returning to a favourite area.

I had spent almost twenty years living not too far from the place she wanted to visit; the sea shores of Point Reyes, California and its -on the road to- environs like Nicasio, Olema, Inverness, Tomales Bay, Drakes Bay, and much more. Great ride.

In the mid 70’s I had set off on the long ride with one passenger. It was a gorgeous full moon. I had driven the whole way; from Ross to Point Reyes Station with no head lights or traffic. The moon was pretty bright. It was like driving in a negative photo; eerie it was but still beautiful; and no I was straight as an arrow that night.

R and I’s first night was going to be in a small hotel not far from the famous Cliff House located on Ocean Parkway and one of San Francisco’s long waterfront beaches. At the time we both lived further north; she in a cool part of Sacramento; I in the ever changing hills of California’s gold and another wine country counties.

We lived about an hour apart from each other. Sometimes for wont of face to face connections, it seemed more like an eternity. Ever since our first meeting and the year long friendship, to this day we’ve always marveled at how many amazing places we managed to visit and fit into a very short amount of time. We had fun.

Although travel always breaks up this life we still seem to hook up and catch up from time to time on either the net or by phone. Like other poet friends in different parts of the world, ‘R’ too is quite the wordsmith. R on the other hand is more than a leading poet in the town she resides. A beautiful and gifted woman, I’ve always admired her creative genius with words as well as her green thumbs.

Without a doubt, she has inspired this guy to not only improve by working harder on the craft, but she has encouraged the explosion of more words in bags then fan letters sitting in the general deliveries of any and all post offices addressed to Elvis P. or Santa C. Like the latter mentioned, her presence always felt like Christmas.

Besides sharing this poem, no one has to look further for proof of this fact then the blog entries, Her Toy Coat, Birds of a Feather, Angels of the Nite, Mokes Hill, The Cure, and more. Those words as well as about a dozen other personal poems have been part of the many shared experiences in R ‘n I’s memory. I’mm a lucky mman to have accompanied her to many unforgettable places as gorgeous as the:

Vista By The See

The bending, descending
Gradually measured grade
Unlocked our view
As we left the dense
Green puzzles behind us;
Releasing our vision to
An expansive panorama before us.
The rough surface of jeweled asphalt
Transformed silently into
A seemingly untouched image,
Stretching out to shades of
Sapphire ponds and smooth water lagoons
Framed by rolling golden hills
In the distant, faded landscape.
Hand in hand we glided on
Drifts of tan and ginger sand.
The malleable surface and
Softly crunching sound
Greeted our bare feet,
Separating our toes with acceptance.
As we gazed down the stretch to the left
We witnessed an encampment of years past.
Assembled by an almost forgotten humanity
Its weathered and worn log slices
Shaped in pyramids by an ancient culture
Had curly knots dried like bones of
A dejected society revealing scant
Stories of how they survived and
Thrived the wilds, embracing
Mother Nature’s elements of time.
Looking behind, left and to the right
Besides light rhythmic tones of diminutive waves,
Desertion and desolation imposed its silence.
A more modern and rustic
Reminder of human’s later existence
Under a thick green canopy of
An ancient tree that stood for support,
A large outhouse with
The greet of a crescent moon
Erected for modern convenience
Was within walking distance
For anyone who would find a path to
The welcoming door of relief.
More hours drifted bye when R ‘n I
Noticed the ‘Indian Trail’ sign.
We trudged up the long, narrow
Steeply at times rise and fall
Twists that and this way, all the time
Being made aware of unexpected roots
Making their own path that grew up
And across our cautious footsteps.
After the jungle of dense woods
And drying vegetation, elation
Found our eyes wandering from
Side two sighed as a the forever walk
Revealed another part of the secret beach
That it seemed no one had discovered
In millennia before our arrival.
We marveled at being alone once more
As did happen many times on shores
Of our always together scenes of serene.
The multiple shades of everything gorge us.
R so wanted to run for fun
That she jogged the length to a bend; an
Out of sight race with her self, ending
As she was returning into view,
Her smile of freedom’s reach was
Shared at the finish line when
Two kissed with the bliss of
This vista by the see.

(Luv to you, R)