Up here
land is at such a premium
even the streets are narrow

***

Churches grow up
among the houses
to blend in
to seem to belong
part of the neighborhood
community all around
easy to reach
at walking level
but steep steeples
still tower
over all

***

jogger running
along the road
a few more months
me

***

across the Bay
the clouds look like mountains
if I didn’t know better
I’d think I was somewhere else

***

trees forests
like so many I’ve seen
not often enough

***

Crossing sign
leaping deer
Where’s Santa?
Crossed already?

***

ridge road crest
cars pulled over parked
foot paths leading up
you can always walk higher
than you can drive

***

people parked
to see the view
down and out
and over
you never
get tired of

***

not the clearest day
almost never is
but clear enough

***

back road
for a change
massage the route

***

ridge road
we must be near
the Himalayas

***

cyclists
alone single or in packs
testing the weather
today it’s good
they pedal for miles

***

Sign: Moraga

Where’s less?

***

back road’s over
suddenly the freeway
pretty busy
here we go

***

BART stops
everywhere
even here
people lined up
waiting

***

Right lane ends
merge left

If only!

***

Upper
Happy Valley

must be better
than lower

***

I breathe in
air conditioned air
so even the old views
are refreshed

***

Sun glasses, Dad.
Reminds me
the sun is out
hunting for blue eyes
like mine
***

all eyes are beautiful
it’s just that mine are better
they tell me
and not because they’re blue

***

the cars around me
are all different
and all the same
I’ve seen them all before
yet not

***

Sign: Livermore
reminds me of the way
I over-cooked the liver
dry and tough
waste not
I ate it anyway

***

Sign: Oracle/Kaiser
Are they adjacent
or the same?

***

How many people
does it take
to make a city?
I see numbers
pretty small.
Then there are those
spreading out bigger
but unincorporated.
What’s in a name?

***

Gas Station
a good system
teaches people
to line up
and wait
their turn

I get out
my credit card
extra percentage
rebate
for buying
food
I won’t claim
gas is food
for the hungry car
I don’t cheat
the Government
or the System
or the Bank

***

Pea Soup Andersens
still splitting
only slightly pricey
I can split
the difference

***

Red Eye
Trump
and Trump supporters
eye to eye
bloodshot

***
Put on
those sunglasses!
Protect
your baby blues.

***
Windmills turning
except
those
not aligned
to the wind

***
People are
looking at
your facebook, Dad!
Maybe I’ll learn enough
to look at myself
and look back.

***
Big windmills, Dad,
turning,
pretty.
I remember
Huell Howser
allowed to go to
the top of one
film the view
and look down
a privilege
not allowed to
everyone
but he shared it
with us

***
and springing
from the hollows
that same big flag
still blowing in the wind
election getting closer

***

I’m never tired
of the clouds
because they keep changing
for me
as I change
for them

***

Mobil
a clever sign of choice
against immobility

***
Have I finally
figured out
those mysterious mounds?
A village
for big gophers,
inhabitants busy.

***
don’t know what it is
over there
some kind of tower
maybe dangerous
but off the road
at a safe distance

***
got my jacket on
because
the air conditioner’s on
when it’s off
I’ll follow suit

***
little windmill
on a little tower
to pump water
halfway up the hill
not moving
looks abandoned
the wind can’t reach it

***
left lane faster
right lane slow
depends where
and how fast
you wanna go

***

you think you know
your destination
and even how
to get there
you assume
like Rome
all roads lead

***

Haven’t you got
anything better to do
than look out the window
and write
what you see?
No.
Apparently not.

***

I’ll write down
while we’re driving
then safely there
I’ll read what I wrote
to see if it needs editing
like everything else in life

***

I love the cluster of cows
by the turn in the road
like the lee of the freeway
that shelters the side

***

house in the fields
an island
in a sea of green

***

rolling hills
again
those giant gophers
at work

***

that very tall fence
to keep out or in
still don’t know what
looks like a prison
holes in the fence
someone escaped?

***

baby nurseries
productive trees growing up
to adolescence
the future’s
already planted
I know I may not live
to see the harvest

***

so far
this has been
a good trip
I wrote a lot
some worthwhile
and I’m not bored
yet

***

my heart
fills up my eyes
so everything
I see
touches me
deeply

***

told you already
last time
what I write
reveals my mood
and how I feel
like the house and barn
each time we pass
progressively
gets more empty

***

That’s too much sad!
Aha!
A passing joke!
A chance to laugh!
Lighten the mood!
Sign on the passing truck:
Devine.
I look at the driver.
Angel?
Driving up?
No,
definitely not.
Looks like
he’s stolen the truck
headed down
the other way.

***

Up,
the Pearly Gates.
Down,
the Gates of Hell.
We have our choice
of Gates.
I choose Bill.

***

Pea Soup Anderson
Maybe I’ll try
the bottomless bowl
all you can eat
I’m almost hungry enough
and I have a reputation

***

Truck logo: Trooper Transport
Really?
Why here?
Why now?
Must be worse
than I thought
What are they
not telling me?

***

Dead trees
lying on their side
in rows.
Maybe someone just
knocked them over.
Probably.
They’re not going anywhere.

***

I hear
from the front seat
two songs conflating:
On the Road Again
99 bottles of beer

***

A row of cactus
nopales
the kind you eat
passed the Mexican restaurant
locally sourced

***

bales of hay
bundled waiting
for pick up
no wonder
the grass
is so short

***

Sign: Mercy Springs

So does hope

***

up a little on a hill
off the road
gas station
where we once stopped
because we had to
why else
would anybody
go there?

***

cattle grazing
right beside
the power tower
close
but safe

***

Rest Area
1 mile
a rest
without handcuffs

***

roadside stand
displaying what
the orchards grow
signs pointing
both ways
open
to get you
whichever way you’re going
desperate
so you won’t pass by

***

lone palm
like a guardian
of the orchard
like a scarecrow
it’s working
no crows

***

little church by the houses
where the workers live
who pick the fruit
and the packing plant where
all practice what they preach
as they process what they reach

***

nice try
for rhyme
try again

***

“Give it a rest!”
How about
I rest myself
and give you a rest?

***

Sign: Russell Ave

What does he ave?
Is he like
Ave Maria?
That’s too religious
for me.

***

Sign: next gas
on the freeway
25 miles

Should we take a safer route?

***

Sign: Pistachios
for sale

I see the sign
nothing else
except a distant house
where I imagine
the pistachios live
huddled in their shells
hoping to be selected and canned
they’re already picked

***

fruit trees
after harvest
picked clean
like the bones
of my teeth

after knowing them well
or medium well
before the brush
off that says
that’s it
that’s all you get
I’m done
I’ll leave you alone
with your emptiness
but take
my teeth
with me

***

Now
I am bored
If we were
in the mountains
I’d be snow bored
or at the beach
I’d be surf bored
or the happenin’ tiresome
boogie bored
or the lake
paddle bored
or the kitchen
cutting bored
or the educated
college bored
or the bricklayer
mortar bored
or the power drill
bored
or grommet
bored
or gimlet
bored
or bored
to death
I’d better stop
being bored
and find something else
to do

***

tumble weeds
I used to be able
to do that

***

slept for awhile
then woke up
don’t know
what I missed
doesn’t matter
what I don’t know
because I missed it

***

close cropped rolling hills and valleys
smooth
like undulating skin
I try
not
to get excited

***
Note: The next entries
are expurgated
for maybe later
private viewing
it’s just too easy
to think that way
once you get started

***

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

***
meaning is where
you find it
keep looking

***

Sign: Lost Hills
Travel Center

Why not just let them
stay lost?

***

Sign: Household Moving

It’s a Very Big Truck.
***

and the radio
now on
saves me
from myself
sufficiently distracted
the landscape
I can interpret
as background
to the beat

***

there’s a wooden
building in process
showing over time
slow motion
from inside out
bones to flesh
so when it’s finished
we’ll all know
if we’ve passed by
often enough
what’s under the skin

***

there’s that little
isolated house
protective trees
and bushes hiding
the lawn and the gazebo
for a picnic at the other end
of the solipsistic yard
the family holding on
to what they have
clutching the vision
of not wanting to lose
the good things of the past
and I think of Silent Running
just saw the movie again
the little biodome
drifting toward the universe
holding the remains
Joan Baez singing through my tears
and I stop my mind
from dessicating the past
and I look again
at the irrigated orchards
and the road ahead

***
protesters more and more
everywhere
the protesters want to stop
selective injustice
without thinking
far enough
to know all the causes
and then fix everything
that needs it

let’s talk
and keep talking
until where we reach
what we say we all want
and all live together
in compatible peace

***

How far back
do we want to go
to establish blame
or stake a claim?
Then we in America
would all be England
and France and Spain.
And Indians would be called
Something else.
And then animals
before people
prehistoric
before the land bridge.
How far back
do we need to go
before we agree
that’s far enough?

***

I see spots
before my eyes
like birds in the sky
I must be
getting old
hope I pass the eye test
to get my license
so I can keep driving
on my own
if there’s still anywhere
I want to go
not imposing
on the patience of others
and not the beginning
of the final end

***
California water crawls
up those four pipes
over the top
then gravity pulls it down
on the other side
surmounting the barrier
between north and south
I hope I live long enough
before the water runs out
and everything dries out
like me then

***

Gorman at the summit
we always liked to stop
and always told ourselves
we couldn’t live there
all the time
and kept going down the valley
to our better home
and now that you are gone
I don’t care where I live
or not
but then my Daughter
took me in
saved my life
I still have the old house
and now also the new
so I live two lives
in two worlds
and back and forth
two houses
co-existing
and I bring
the house of the closed past
complete with tears
into the expanding present
and because
I can control my mind I
find the joy of more
love finds new ways
to make life good
and through tears
I smile again

***

I’m sad all the time
and happy all the time
having found the way
to be both

***

And Pyramid Lake
Baby Shasta
it’s my lake now
I own its soul
and it owns mine

***

and downhill now
all the way
to the end
I’m looking
at the hills
for poppies
and mustard yellow
and yucca
in any order

***

and road construction
probably moving along
but so slowly
I’ll never see
what they had in mind

***

Coming up
on the valleys
radiating out
from L.A.
which will always
be home

***

Magic Mountain
from the freeway
I can’t see the magic
and only imagine
the mountain

***

wires strung along
over the hillside valley
round weights spaced
to keep them from
getting loose
swinging in the wind
hanging too low
reaching the ground
maybe starting fires
or whatever loose wires
do
when they’re up to
or down to
no good

***

and now a turn of the dial
classical music
on the radio
The Music Station
I knew music was there
all along

***

and the local signs proliferate
to tell me where
I’ve always been

***

and a pile of gravel
and machines
for the unstoppable
greater L.A.
expansion

***

Graduation Time
and on the radio
I identified Brahms
to everyone’s amazement
the Academic Overture
gaudeamus igitur
which everybody knows
and can sing along
and did
but this version Brahms
because I have a lot of records
listened to
and my memory’s still
at least partly intact
and I praised The Music Station
for all my life
and those nice people
sensitive to the time and calendar
and you just can’t hear enough music
I think I’ll contribute to the station again
because even art and music
need money to survive
now more than ever

***

Sylmar
Next 4 Exits
I hadn’t realized
it got that big
when Aunt Jessie lived there
I think it only needed one

***

and all the signs
more and more familiar
closer and closer
to home

***

and on the hill
the animal pens
I’ve always wondered about
hanging off the hillside
for sheep and/or goats
which come out
sometimes on view
like just now I think a sheep
as we drive past

***

and that kind of limited
flood plain
that had one year
the greatest bumper crop
of yucca
that I’d ever seen
and keep looking for
every time we pass by

***

and on the hills
some kind of yellow plant
a barely adequate
replacement

***

and now there’s fog in the valley
that used to be smog
things can change
and get better
but now I look closer
and maybe it is smog mixed
so I just don’t know again
what to think
or make of things

***

And that’s a good last word
unless there’s something else

***

Apparently there is
for now the floating spot
I see before me
drifting like a bug
on air
I keep trying to catch it
but realize
it’s only the spot
I was worried about before
and so I worry again
about the eye test
that apparently
I’m not ready for
yet

***

and now
we’re going along
Woodbury Avenue
to Stater Bros
to buy some things
we need
passing Christmas Tree Lane
stopping at El Molino,
then down Lake,
past St. Elizabeth’s
and the Grotto of Lourdes
and Westminster Presbyterian
all Cathedral with Towers
turn left on Washington
past Gladstone’s Donuts
the Catalina Library
and Longfellow Elementary
my old school
where I taught for ten years
with great success
they still remember
past Washington Village
all those shops and restaurants
to Stater Bros
now my favorite store
which Shirley also loved
the Deli the flowers
the fresh cut fruit the range
of yogurt and ice cream
and prime cut meats
only occasionally
because they’re expensive everywhere
and those last long
months and years
progressively
when she less and less
could get around
or eat real regular food
and I kept trying to find
whatever she still could eat or drink
and I cry every time
in the store from memories but
I also cherish the good and
this time we bought
a few necessaries milk
and turnovers in
Shirley’s honor for Mother’s Day
still celebratable
and ready for the checkout line
a woman pushing a shopping cart
looked at me carefully
hopefully and said
“Would your last name be Sterling?”
“Yes”
“I was your student at Marshall
and you read Shakespeare
like he was in the room
and you sang to us in German…”
and comments about my famous
former pony tail,
and we caught up, Monica,
and stayed a little longer
than you might expect
and then the cashier and pay
and to the house
to settle in
and eat turnovers
we’ll come back
more often
so much of my life
is here