"Guide to California"

Rolling hills of roofing tiles, pink and salmon,
with darker shades of older growth,
with squares of deck and “drives” for parking,
thrive along clear concrete channels, lush and thick,
awaiting rain that falls as often as a holiday.

Nearby, a fecund stand of glass and steel
stretches toward the sun;
these ever-reaching monuments give shade
and offer habitat to countless, heedless life;
they teem, busy with the business of existence.

And in amongst the rushes, if one is patient
and inclined to natural observation,
one may sight a rare delight:
evidence of a sea-to-mountain tapestry
reduced to remnants of its former range.

What’s left are ragged patches of this golden quilt.
Its stitches long exposed and routed,
few seams of wildlife, primordial, remain:
the buggy haze above a spray of shimmering grass,
an aged oak who has long outlived his children.