Winding Road

Winding Road


I walked down the dark,
winding road at dusk in twilight,

and something like poetry came to me.


In the distance children
talk with each other,
and Canyon, California,
is all around, -
quiet, apart, a forest
of redwoods.


That old man who stands
on the road here,
that sometimes shirtless Canyon critter,
maybe 70 years old with long white hair,
smiling with a big belly,
a little aimless, a village presence,
an independent character,
who may sometimes catch a ride
into town for groceries,
seems at home in himself.


He may have found his way
to Canyon years ago - in the '60s
and just stayed? - because
it's nice here in Canyon.
His parents were both
professors, I'm told.


I wander farther down,
and pick up my mail
- a letter from my mother is in my box -
at the post office by the creek,
which is running at this time of year,
and begin to make my way back up the hill.

A vehicle comes toward me and
I move indirectly away,
to the benches to my left - it's dark now -
and sit on one hewn from
two large, soft, rounded boards.

I sit in the dark silence.

Next to this bench is another,
which looks like Victorian iron work,
painted white, almost like a bed frame. It is.
There's another bench, too, from a park,
all of them circled next to the funky garden.

And there's also a small wooden table,
a wheelbarrow with soil in it,
some sawn wooden tree stumps for seats,
a sundial, and two planters,
one with fragrant sage growing,
which I touch and scent-savor.

I don't go in through
the inviting garden gate.



As I sit on the bench
under the trees near the garden,
I begin to explore eliciting bliss,
neurophysiologically and naturally,
~ is this due to flax seed oil's
omega fatty acids,
and a daily multivitamin,
taken with food? ~
in relation to the trees, the plants,
and the road that I see around me, ~
in the deepening twilight.


How deeply? With what qualities?
MMmmm ... bliss comes lightly,
but fulsomely.
Can our brains be musical instruments,
each with their own timbre?
Can we play our bodyminds?
I see the tree there,
and dance, sing and improvise
with it in my mind.



I've seen the kids
from the Canyon school, close by,
sitting in this circle, and I've heard
that they tend the garden, too.

In the dark, oh so temperate air,
- it's so nice this evening -
I stand to walk back up
the winding road, homeward.

Vines are straddling and hanging
~ a big rose bush is in bloom,
and another broadleaf spreads -
from the garden fence, as I walk by.

I think about hopping
in the hot tub a little farther along,
but I haven't been in before here,
and don't know these folks yet.

Earlier, Fiona and her best friend,
for whom she is planning a wedding,
at the place where I live,
gather with another friend
to talk about it.

I come high up the road and
the wide sky opens above to my eyes.

The moon, the moon,
is large,
an illuminated eye
in that tree's canopy.

I'm sweating a little;
I came walking for the walk,
and this health-generating effort.

Can I become like that old guy,
as I pass his place - content in himself,
and with being in Canyon?
I don't know that old hippie,

but this winding road is a beautiful way.

I pass the old Volkswagen
VW bug - so old
and rusty that it's just
fading, rounded metal, and
a memory covered with plants -
before turning toward my home.

The ridge top is here,
and my wooden house
to my left
calls me
to bed in the moonlight.

*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardknott_Pass

...

(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/05/winding-road.html - May 9, 2009)