Meditations on the California North Coast

By Eliott Coyle

For one day it rained
curtains and sheets,
permeating the hillside.
Effortless it came,
effortless it changed.
Roads eroded,
soil moved to mud
and took trees with it.

Water is soft
until everything
becomes likewise.

That evening
I ran the faucet,
filled my cup,
and drank from the sky.

Beneath soil
sustenance, fertility.
On the surface,
hardness
of stone and wood.

When the rain settles,
I go out into the forest,
hoping to find
what I’m looking for.

A grove of redwood,
an organic sky-rise.
I always climb them barefoot.
They are the changing of perception.

When the sun sets
in the mountains,
I throw pine needles
in the fire.

This digestive force
transforms trees to ash,
water to steam.
It is alchemy and magic,
unseen, a streaming of gases.

In the blue black sky,
a […]