Wail

Rare, the shrill coyote bark’s become
as our presence intrudes on theirs.
Nights we suffer from our own noise,
left in peace with the howl of our cares. 

****

I lived seven years in my thirties in Berkeley and environs, a poetically  productive period of my life. I was working as a wine merchant and had given up on academic expectations, those that I had myself but also those others had of me.  The main bonds upon me were those of epicurean oenophile commerce. Poetry therefore came more easily.

Now I have lived almost another ten productive years in Southern California, my personal moment of waning twilight on hills where chaparral used to reign. Despite this, few of my poems bear any trace of the Californian landscape.  Here is one, which speaks to the systematic invasion of that landscape by humans with the resultant loss of habitant for its habitants.

Here are a few others:

Thoroughfares
Orthodox Cemetery at Fort Ross
The Horticulturist
Chaparral Sunset
Giraffes at San Gorgonio

Not to mention my recent verse in Mandarin. first line of a poem which I hope to finish before I pass.

白鹭在 路边
bái lù zài lù biān
An egret lit on the roadside.