Ode to Stinson Beach

Oh Pablo Neruda,

 I bet you've written plenty about

 this coast.

 It's ruthless.

 Total concentration required

 otherwise I am

 left vastly alone

 with my thoughts

 and the ferns

 and the sand

 and the breeze from the thin

 thin

 air.

 I drive past an art studio,

 and a lone horse at a ranch.

 Brown meets blue

 no

 enveloped in blue

 so long 

 as I can still see 

 the glistening rocks below.

 Only when Eucalyptus

 infiltrates my senses

 do I realize

 I have escaped the coast

 it's overwhelming clarity

 away from mirror

 so much safer to

 keep my distance

 yet so much more

 alive

 along

 that coast.

Didn't you get my postcard?

eyes like jeans

faded and clean

Baby, it's a good life.

Closing Remarks:

You came to me in the end

and

melted away

out of yourself, a

substance

and

in myself

I instantly see the change.

The inevitable forward motion

into futures untouched,

into empty fields,

into dark rooms,

into sad blue,

out of a hole,

eyes open.

Take it from the west side

“As concisely as possible, this is it: [M]usic has intrinsic

meanings of its own, which are not to be confused with

specific feelings or moods, and certainly not with pictorial

impressions or stories. These intrinsic musical meanings

are generated by a constant stream of metaphors, all of

which are forms of poetic transformations. This is our

thesis.”

– Leonard Bernstein