—from Joe Milosch’s workshop
Nestled at the foot of the Palomar mountains
the thermal pools at Warner Springs Ranch
ripple with myriad prisms. Refracted light
bends our legs into sevens and elevens.
Palm leaves clatter in the desert breeze
like a film projector at the end of a reel
the audience waits while the spliced leader
flashes crosses and numeric bulls-eyes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...
The Cupeños, Bing Crosby & the Duke
once soaked their weary bones here.
Joe asks us to write about a time when we were young.
I can't think of anything. I'm pushing 55, and I think
soon I'll be able to get into the movies cheap.
But the price of admission has more than tripled
since I was a kid. Yesterday I was the Baba, the baby.
Time is zooming by art the speed of regret.
I may have passed the half century mark,
but behind the long distance of these eyes,
behind this crepe thin skin, I am still young.
My hair is a raft of chestnut light
floating behind me like a horse's tail
and I'm remembering the ritual
of the first pool dip of the season.
Sometimes we'd sneak into the water
before the sun had done her job
as if to rush the coming of summer
and a glove of icy fear gripped our hearts.
We were left gasping for breath.
When I was young, I spent the entire season
swimming myself into aqua exhaustion
the healing plunge into a pool where pale bubbles
rose up to challenge the endless sky.
A crimson leaf floats in the pool.
Stains the retina.
For a moment time had stopped.
Maureen Hurley 9/9/2007
Warner Springs Ranch
Poem published in Memories of Southern California: Poetic Recollections, Four Feathers Press, Don Campbell, Editor, 2022
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