Spotlight on Three
Richard Cody of
Notes from a Life in Progress, Crystal King of
We Write to Taste Life Twice and Stanton Finley of
Observations:
Big Sur (Impressions)
By
Richard Cody
I
Castro Creek splashes toward the Pacific,
abandoned to gravity and something like enthusiasm
informing the liquid chatter.
It is a hopeful sound despite what I know –
that happy babble must soon be lost
in the surf which pounds and crashes
and foams below.
The ocean is a presence here.
Even in the folds of mountains
close among the shadows of the trees,
away from the rolling tide
and cool salty breeze, the ocean
maintains itself in memory
(those waters are deeper,
the shores more broad
than any in reality).
II
Trees outnumber human beings here.
Oak and Pine and California Redwood
make a minority of man.
We walk beneath them, consider them
inanimate.
The truth is
we simply move too fast to see
the reality of a tree.
The quick pulse at our core
impels us forward into life.
A Redwood only moves toward the sun.
III
On the hearth, as we watch,
the slow consummation of fire and wood.
It was a pine tree.
Or is that Oak glowing
in the crucible of flames?
Neither now, the log has been transformed
into heat and light
and shadows on the wall.
All around us now is a night
that can be described only as profound.
City dwellers like myself
have known only a false night.
Here, blank staring darkness takes on real meaning
when you step away from the pale aureole
of the porch light.
But step away, find in that living dark your night eyes,
and you will see things that are merely ghosts
in city skies.
Sunlight reincarnated in the silver moon.
Stars shining a thousand years in the past.
Constellations mapping the sky.
I could step outside now,
begin counting those points of light,
and continue until the day I die.
IV
A few days away from daily news
and the buzz of huddled masses,
the general drone in which cities speak,
I find myself listening to something
I have never heard before:
silence.
The cackle of crows in the morning,
the bark of dogs at night,
the hum of cars spinning along Highway 1 –
These sounds come and go,
the silence here is never done.
The Santa Lucia Mountains are haunted by it.
On the beaches it hides beneath the crash
of waves. It is only punctuated
by the voice of the sea.
The quiet here is a secret
proclaiming itself constantly.
“Listen,” it seems to say.
Bypass
by Crystal King
The bark was rough against my back and
The rain danced tiny patterns on
My cheeks while you talked of
Indians running through mossy forests.
The tree loomed above our wet heads
Vertical shadows in the darkness and
Reminded me of natural umbrellas carried by
Mossy Indians running through forests.
I wanted to touch my drunken lips
To yours and let the rain run through
Closed eyelashes but you only spoke of
Running Indians through forests of moss.
Wet pineneedles stuck to our pantlegs and
You looked out into the rain above
The trees and past my heart where
Indians ran through moss-covered forests.
Untitled
by Stanton Finley
we strive
we give
we give up
we take
we are human
selfish
and selfless
base
and noble
no paradox
the saint is such
from stumbling
upon his miracle
we are a coin
flung in the air
one side in the light
the other in the dark
alternating
as it spins
a coin
which must have two sides
to exist at all
we regret our folly
in hindsight
and we cry
unseen
aching
for redemption
