Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Calistoga--year's end, 2014


Calistoga 12/31/14

--for the Kanes



The Oat Hill Mine Trail is the most northerly stretch
of the Bay Area Ridge Trail, rising some two thousand feet
above Napa Valley, sandstone bedrock
finally giving way to fantasia formations
of lichen covered lava.

The rooster in the yard across from the trailhead
sends me off, greets my return.

Along the trail, oak and fir, tight white flower buds
drape the madrone, and the summit crackles
mid-afternoon ice—no other face
anywhere up here—inessentials
tend to drop away

in air like this, in this kind
of space—what better place then, to let go

another fully lived year, give it back
to that great love affair called friendship.

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