blue mountains

The security guard mostly had no face,
blonde and pale, hot light on a white pumpkin,
eyes dull as carpet. But, he was the one protecting them,
the big homes on the other side of the hedges,
the ones who bought the ocean view.
So, I asked him, "What if you don't know someone?"
"I let him in anyway."
"What if you see he has a gun?"
"I for sure let him in."
But of course that's like the canyon,
the last great drive in the county.
They dropped a giant toll road hard across it,
even though I-5 runs 10 lanes just 2 miles away.
Now, there's new cement flying 300 feet in the air,
and a bright wall of dirt high as the pyramids,
instead of what..Nothing? Beauty? Serenity?
Grass and wildflowers, hawks and deers?
The world?
Supervisors said it would cut traffic,
but everybody knows a highway is for new houses
and it was built to get the last naked hills all covered up.
The people against it maybe gave up restaurants
or Disneyland or CD's to chip in for signs and all,
or they just stood there sad on the side of the road,
holding candles, hoping to get someone to honk.
The real estate guys tucked the price
for destruction into the new home mortgages.
They bought the road easy as spray paint cans.
That's why kids don't know what vandalism is.
They named the airport here after an actor
and there's a statue of him there,
but let's say he was a beautiful little canyon:
they wouldn't ever run a freeway through a movie star.
Do we think the security guard is protecting us?
The law is: "You kids can't spraypaint John Wayne
but your Dads can pave over everything."
It's just like my son when he was five,
pointing out the San Bernardino mountains
to his three-year-old sister, "You see those, Gina,
those are the blue mountains."
And goddamn it if they weren't blue.
I guess at some point you have to ask,
how old are you when you can't see
the color blue on something big as a mountain?

© CyberClem


back to the race | iguanaland