The ones who grew out of your grass stay mostly indoors now. They are the greedy kind, the unfortunate few who only know of the sun. Their hands are soft. Their eyes are dull to the piercing ball of fire that dips into the Pacific every late afternoon, and their skin is dark enough not to budge in the midday heat, a place where tanlines are buried to rest. Their skin is not fit for all seasons. Drunk and spoiled, they will never know of the violence the sky could bring.
But I, I forever watch your palm trees make shapes on the sidewalk. I sink into the impossible temperature, rubbing my eyes to see the calendar day. (February!) I dip my toes into your black sand beaches and warm the balls of my feet on your slick rocks coated by the sea’s glaze. Your birds sing in harmonies. Your wind blows slightly through my balcony door making the curtain ripple and roll across the floor. Your native girls are all golden, from their toes, to shoulders to the tips of their bangs, like little goddess-girls, in their pastels and cigarettes. Your boys glide gallantly across the barreling waves with great ease. I watch you drop lemons from your trees, and make butter out of avocados. San Francisco is a lady, and Los Angeles is her daughter.
Everything about you is slow, and forgiving. Your mountains are silent bodies, like guards to line the state, shoving those who surround you to their deserts and wastelands.Your redwoods are resilient. But mostly, you are loyal, lighting the entire sky with tangerine hues just before your final farewell, every evening, and each time, more sad than the last.
You gave me a place of rest in the breast of your Southern land, and for that, you are my friend. The last of the Great Americas.
Every artist has written his ode to you, and I am eternally yours,
Impatiently,
Nada
