Notes from Here to the Ocean

If you have ever pulled the car over to set down an idea, you are a writer.

Blew a kiss to a jacaranda in bloom.

Perfectly tilled dirt. A machine has been here, farming.

The word arroyo untranslatable.

Hand to my own throat, fingers spread. The fragility there. Breakable breath.

"Table Song" : pious brother to your vices / You were shunned and burned your cradle

A decapitated palm tree looking like a violation. Unusual violence. Shaggy beneath its headlessness. The trimline ladder-high.

The shape of a woman with a latte, gazing.

I missed when it rolled over to 10,000 miles because of "Mary" and the scenery : the sugar rush / the constant hush / the pushing of the water gush

Precious water.

Driving, really driving, moving across the land at speed, as liminal: between waking and sleeping, between here and the ocean, the minutes after waking from a nap on the sofa, when the entire body glows with contentment.

Recognizing this feeling. Oh, it's love, I am in love. The voice murmuring to me over waves, dripping, that voice. Not that kind of love. Like poetry. Like music: the guitar rising in my heart, the piano rippling across my ribcage. I had forgotten falling in love could be nonsexual, nonromantic.

See myself as a streak of light blazing down the highway. Colors of the dawn.

Come around the last curve and there she is, spread out, stretched out, burning a thousand candles.

C'est vous, Los Angeles. Every love song is for you.

Shake my hair back, a happy animal. Take, take me home.