the path today was
as its always been:

stone-spattered; dew-laden; voluptuous with
vultures and vermin and red foxes.

there were rocks in the shapes of hands
reaching out to the Pacific
in yearning or mourning or both
or neither.

maybe they were reaching
for nothing;
desiring nothing but to desire - no end game.

the path today was
as its always been:

a path to take and to admire.
the Pacific and its entrails, its beating blood and
its ***** hair lining walls of granite
that seemingly stretch north and south forever,
remind me of a universal reminder:

we are but guests here,
guests, in every end,

that should admire.

forgetting the nod of seals
the wave of kelp
the caress of fog and wind
the cajoling reeds in spin,
is to forfeit's one's present body's satisfaction.

the path today
was as its always been:

made of strangers and lovers,
brothers and kin.

I miss their noncommittal glances and their suspicion of me.
to be feared, in some way,
is to be recognized

of one's awful humanity.

then I think of their ankles
pressed against leather and grain
in pain; their breath bereft
of comfort - only starlight.

we are our ancestor's daydreams
wonderous fabrications of projections
too wild to materialize presently.

the path today was as it's always been.
the path today

was for them and

for nobody.