Solstice

On the Gray Rabbit, a converted Greyhound bus, we're heading north. Am I the only one who thinks it's funny? Hound into hare. Steady laughter, the perfume of grass, oranges bursting into song. People kissing loved ones goodbye. Mr. Rabbit gives us page 2 of the rules again. Rabbit's rules of order, it's Gray Rabbit space, we are sardines juxtaposed between the sheets in the belly of the hare and hound.

The solstice sun dips into a mock orange sky. The patient sky spreads its wings behind black sculpted mountain. Tamalpais flaunts her woman's profile to the sky, a jealous husband asleep at her feet. 

Interstate five threads this day of solstice from San Francisco to Seattle. The flowers in my hair are made of silk, not real, they're the colors of sunset and the opalescent waters of the bay gives credence to the moon. Venus is the first to appear on the horizon, or is the sky one vast diaphragm with pinpricks of light filtering through? 

The rolling hills on forever, Shasta waits, silent. White. Lee said the women of Indiana have blonde hair and bovine eyes. A blonde woman boards the bus with a kneeler. I thought she was headed for the monastery. 

The other morning  on the way back home from the Sierras, I swam in the Yuba River, and Lake Berryessa. Lee sat and watched me. At sunset, Pope Valley spread before us like a bowl containing cattle and the grapes of the west. 

Pam and Michael are headed to Juneau. Her brother Alan's been living there for seven or eight years and she's been meaning to go up and visit for sometime now. There are 42 people lying around in this hound of a  bus. Three people to a mattress. It's all mattresses and pillows and people. I couldn't bring my typewriter. I brought it all the way to the bus and left it in Lee's car. 

Pam is stoned on those Thai sticks that that float in on the sea— seaweed. She's a mermaid. I'm eating dope brownies stuck together in a lump. Pam brought us dope cookies and tofu sandwiches from Cazadero. Three of the four food groups. She does pretty well for someone who doesn't know how to cook.