She is There

Goddess,

seven miles up in the remote redwood mountains

above the village of Aptos I now live;

it gets narrow & winding, daunting at times,

the road that climbs & climbs;

& there is a place high up on the ridge along the road

where a marvelous view opens—

Suddenly, You are there,

Your panorama before us is there—

Your breasted Bay to the south, the open Pacific

to the distant horizon spread;

to the right, Santa Cruz gently tucked in

behind ridges of green;

& ridge after ridge of dark evergreen descend

to the edge of the still deepward, darker, unseen places

You are.

And every day,

You appear to us differently,

You change from day to day—

Goddess, today,

I see only the floating peaks of the ghostly Santa Lucias

above an impenetrable wall of fog;

there are days You are silvery-blue in veils of obscuring haze

when the mountains cannot be seen at all;

& comes a day when only an ocean of fog is spread out below,

completely enveloping Your body;

& then come days I see all the detail my eyes allow me

to see

round the curve of Your body—

The white sands of the miles of beach, the power plant visible

at Moss Landing,

a plume of white spouting flag-like there from the tallest stacks,

as You shimmer brilliantly, a pool of blinding light,

stretched out across the blue jewel the Pacific—

At night,

You are the black opal, and Your necklace

of distant Monterey & Pacific Grove glimmers its pearls,

& often in gazing back round Your curve

seems a band of fog

in the dark

even glows.

And there are days of cloud building up across the open,

days the Bay waters are variegated like polished marble,

days when wisps of fog ride between the layered ridges,

days when a curtain of smoky-gray just hangs offshore—

Goddess,

this place I give testimony of You—

Every time I come to this spot, I slow down,

I stop,

I sacrifice a moment, at the very least,

to gaze upon You, to honor You,

to acknowledge Your living presence among us.

Aptos

April 2001