Near miss at the lake (photo)

A good thing I was channeling Jerry Downs, thinking of how I would compose my photo.

I think I might have just sidestepped fate. A near miss. Or at least the avoidance of a head-on collision. I was getting ready to pull into my usual pullout by the lake where there was a faint cellular signal where I could pick up my email (zero reception in Nicasio), and to take a morning photo, but a huge semi truck was coming the other way.

I don’t know what prompted me to change my usual daily pattern, other than I was thinking of taking a photo and what photographer Jerry Downs had said earlier about having the patience to wait for the exact right moment to take a photo. So, by chance, I pulled off the road to the shoulder to wait for the truck to pass—just as a pickup stuck behind it, was passing it with a vengeance. Talk about right moment.

Normally I would’ve just turned in front of the semi truck to park in the pullout by the lake, and thought nothing of it. I had plenty of time to make the left turn, the semi was slow, but I was in no hurry. Besides, I was admiring the stray wisps of morning fog curling catlike through the hills—dreamily composing a camera angle in my head. So, on an impulse, I pulled off the road right onto the bike path.

The pickup spotted me too late, slammed on its brakes, skidding into my lane just where I had just been driving, smoke billowing from the tires. But by then, I was safely off to the side of the road. I just sat on the shoulder, stunned—and popped the clutch. My poor car juggered to a stop, and turned its head as if to look back at me questioningly, like my old horse. Really?

The air is laden with black smoke, the acrid odor of burnt tires and hydraulic fluid. Black skid marks indelibly annealed to the road for months to come. A grim reminder of melted tire tracks right where I had just been driving. It all happened so quickly, there would’ve been no time to second-guess, or even to avert an accident. It was a fluke. Or Karma. Certainly cars were involved. Some cosmic April Fools joke?

Earlier, I was dwelling on the precariousness of life, and the importance of living each day as if it were the last. Fully, in the moment, as it were—I was feeling that mortal coil of time having outlived both my parents.

Meanwhile, the pelicans and grebes carry on with the business of trolling for breakfast, breaking concentric fish circles on the glassine lake, making solemn vees on the surface of the lake as they bear down on their quarry. As if a V for victory. A cormorant skims the surface of the lake, stitching the mirrored surface with its wings. Gathers in the view. In the cattails, a pair of monstrous pale bass break the surface, they lip and taste the air, splaying their tails, they are entwined in that oldest dance of the world. Life goes on.

I’m still sitting by the side of the road, shaken, trying to get up enough nerve to move down the road....as if there were a tiny capsule of protected timelessness here. I’m shaking so bad that I’m uneasy about driving north. 

The rain has arrived. I’m watching the osprey who are building a nest somewhere inland, they fly up the path of the inlet, the lake is their ley line. Earlier I was dwelling on the precariousness of life, as I’ve been living each day as if it were the last. Fully, in the moment, as it were—feeling that mortal coil. I think I’ll just sit here a while longer and shake. Maybe cry a bit.

I must admit that I sat by the side of the road and contemplated my navel for quite some time afterwards. Ironically, I was channeling photographer Jerry Downs in my head, wondering how he’d render the lake and tule fog in a photo as the light was rather flat—so that misplaced moment saved me from a potentially gnarly outcome. One time when being pokey and admiring the view paid off....

The door prize: I found a rare white Fritillaria too. Right across from where I was parked...the bladder wants what it wants, you know... I had to pee something fierce after that scare, I’m surprised I didn’t crap, my pants. I went up the hill and found this rarest of flowers—an April Fool door prize? Not every day one finds a an endangered species with a Plant Rank: 1B.2. I drove around the lake to the spillway, and suddenly the clouds parted, and it was as if I were inside of a painting by Turner.

4/1/19

I did not write this for A Poem A Day challenge, but it could fit the premise.

Write a morning poem. Maybe you’re a morning person, maybe not. Your poem can be about a morning. Or it can be set during the morning. And those who’ve done this before probably already know that I have no problem with you interpreting this as a “mourning poem.”