There are constant voices on the sidewalk
old willows scraping at the screen
Dear God! the wind is swelling
and I might go with it
if only for a while.
I think I’ve played the human game
long enough and I’ll set sail
down Ballona Creek if it went to
somewhere that didn’t move.
There’s where I'm headed, see.
Where animals keep responding
to sounds to flickers in the atmosphere
their scalps foil antennae against the night.
I’m spinning here. It’s radiation and its
growing, but Geology is dead
always has been. If it wasn’t, it would
breathe with us, dine with us,
even duplicate with us. But it’s howling
in the wind, the swelling sound.
And I’m stepping into it,
ready to go. Ready to forfeit
the rocks this time. The dead rocks
are null to me and I’ve lost the zest
to peer down holes into
the speckled, laminated land.