Travels on the Coast..........

Jughandle State Preserve

There are seamless  moments that reveal

a pulse

rolling down 47th street, or the freeway

a pulse, not apart perhaps

from a white capped wave that just

broke on a summer shoreline in Cape Cod,

and now ripples off to Africa.

I want to tell someone (who will believe me?)

that if I lift this foot

a spiral galaxy

will spill like cream

across the fine dark pavement of eternity.

(1989) from "A House of Doors - Open Poems"

Saying Hello to Gaia

The Way I Think It Really Is......

Hydragea in Mendocino

 The green plants

         magically
from water      air
the soil
from water      earth
    air
earth        water
air            light
earth and sunlight

sunlight
vibrating waves
        shimmering
grasses in the sun

........Felicia Miller*

Jughandle Farmhouse Hostel

Saying Farewell to the Ocean

Pink Ladies say "Hello"

 "Then what is the answer?— Not to be deluded by dreams.
To know that great civilizations have broken down into violence,
and their tyrants come, many times before.
When open violence appears, to avoid it with honor or choose
the least ugly faction; these evils are essential.
To keep one’s own integrity, be merciful and uncorrupted
and not wish for evil; and not be duped
By dreams of universal justice or happiness.
These dreams will not be fulfilled.
To know this, and know that however ugly the parts appear
the whole remains beautiful. A severed hand
Is an ugly thing and man dissevered from the earth and stars
and his history... for contemplation or in fact...
Often appears atrociously ugly.
Integrity is wholeness, the greatest beauty is
Organic wholeness, the wholeness of life and things,
the divine beauty of the universe.
Love that, not man apart from that,
or else you will share man’s pitiful confusions,
or drown in despair when his days darken."

Not Man Apart - Robinson Jeffers*

*My friend Felicia passed away in 2010 - she was a mermaid never entirely easy on land.  Robinson Jeffers spent much of his life wandering the Big Sur coastline of California.  I always think of them both when I visit the coast, feeling perhaps their spirits leaving footprints in the sand still.