paradise waits

poised for flight, wings spread bright, springs from night into the sun
a white stork skims the napa river at the imola bridge


another song from Hunter and Garcia there right before your eyes,
one of my very favorites too, help on the way -


Paradise waits, on the crest of a wave, her angels in flames.
She has no pain, like a child she is pure, she is not to blame.
Poised for flight, wings spread bright, spring from night into the sun.
Don't stop to run, she can fly like a lie, she can't be outdone.

Tell me the cost; I can pay, let me go, tell me love is not lost.
Sell everything; without love day to day insanity's king.
I will pay day by day, anyway, lock, bolt and key.
Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see.

Help on the way, well, I know only this, I've got you today.
Don't fly away, cause I love what I love and I want it that way.
I will stay one more day, like I say, honey it's you.
Making it too, without love in a dream it will never come true.

coming in

touching down on the banks of the napa river

as i was taking mark to school this morning, hot air balloons were drifting over
our neighborhood. after i dropped him off, i followed this one south of downtown,
to where it touched down here at the riverside.

and heading out

the 9:03 ghost train, leaving old napa town for parts unknown.

living in a goldfish bowl

Little Fish
by D.H. Lawrence

The tiny fish enjoy themselves
in the sea.
Quick little splinters of life,
their little lives are fun to them
in the sea.

this baby's birth

just moments after her birth yesterday, a beautiful girl and her blissed-out dad


this verse is from the poem 'births' -

It's well known that we were all born.

but of that abrupt translation
from not being to existing, to having hands,
to seeing, to having eyes,
to eating and weeping and overflowing
and loving and loving and suffering and suffering,
of that transition, that quivering
of an electric presence, raising up
one body more, like a living cup,
and of that woman left empty,
the mother who is left there in her own blood
and her lacerated fullness,
and its end and its beginning, and disorder
tumbling the pulse, the floor, the covers
till everything comes together and adds
one more knot to the thread of life,
nothing, nothing remains in your memory
of the savage sea which summoned up a wave
and plucked a hidden apple from the tree.

The only thing you remember is your life.

(pablo neruda, 1962)