Then As Now

“Know ye that on the right hand of the Indies
there is an island called California,
very near the terrestrial Paradise…”
(Garci Rodríguez Ordóñez de Montalvo, circa 1510)
where you might remember wind
murmuring in the
leaves (eucalyptus)
                              The voice is familiar but
              what it says is
                                                something you never heard before
& rhyming the way it does with the early morning traffic
on Hwy 1 so much like the crashing of waves
out along the jetty
              I know you’ve felt that same rush
in your veins
                              & the arc of sunrise on your lips
as you are fully aware that the myth of terror
              lights up every third eye you happen to meet