MIGRATION

              —for Bruce Moody

After the poetry reading, we sit on the balcony
it's sultry for November, real earthquake weather.
The lights of the new bridge glaze the bay
and the train hugging the shore wends its way
along the narrows, sounding a two-chord jazz note.
The frosted pink C&H sign sweetens an indigo sky.
We offer pinot grigio toasts, catching-up with the years,
myriad stars and the Big Dipper whirl above our heads.
Bruce asks, if you had a billion dollars,
where would you go? Not what would you buy.
Death will discharge our debts.
On the far shore of the Carquinez Straits
the new houses ring the hills like fireflies.
Mesmerized by their own beauty

they crowd the shore, a thirsty herd of wildebeasts

waiting for a sacrificial leader to take the plunge
into dangerous waters and force them into the drink.
Perhaps an earthquake will do.

A BAPTISM OF SORTS

The fog rolls in along San Pablo Bay,

right to where I'm heading,

obliterating Mt Diablo in a marine haze.

Freeway is jammed—glinting sinew of light

so I drive the long way home

obliquely through Golden Gate Fields parking lot,

& savor the last glimmer of sun on the bay,

I take photos of the marsh.

Watch an egret skim the shore.

As I make to leave,

a fat golden lab named Stella,

dripping wet from the bay,

takes a shine to me—

greets me like a long lost relative.

Her owner apologizes—says:

I don't know why, but my dog seems to like you.

She was whining to see you.

What was I, a dog in a past life, or what?

Maybe it's the neighbor's dog of my childhood

reincarnated several times over.

She does seem to know me. Gives me a lick.

The dog shakes a little more of the bay on me.

A baptism of sorts. Perhaps for the solstice.