A green swath on a map
beckons me
to leave cocoon of car-choked highway
and navigate
lonely paths of pavement
through lost faded towns,
past corrals of nodding donkeys sipping crude,
across wedded crusts of earth that seek divorce

To a wide stretch of planet where
dirt grids of would-be streets
hint at failed Xanadu dreams,
phalanxes of solar shields
form shimmering mirage, 
asphalt knife slices open
green carpet and salt abandoned by
water gone off to the clouds
 
Midst a billion nascent blooms
of fiddleneck, owls clover and meadows foam
I stand in this  empty place 
(named, they say, for grass that
caressed the belly of Spanish horse) 
and ask  
Why did you call?     

Then for a moment
a brief moment,
I am one of its wild plants
freed of seed by winter rains
to reach towards the sun
and offer petals
red, yellow, blue
my sole task to stand sentinel o'er the land
and be beautiful
before the hot, brown old age of summer
and brittleness of death in fall  

---

A National Monument, California’s CARRIZO PLAIN is a large, enclosed grasslands plain formed in part by the San Andreas Fault. Located between Bakersfield and San Luis Obispo, it is the largest remaining native grassland in the state and is renown for its spring wildflowers.

This poem was written in 2015 after a first brief visit to the plain, Robbie and I taking Highway 58 through it while driving back to Los Angeles from Santa Rosa. The photo was taken in April, 2019 on a camping trip with friends John Raycraft and Rick Guiterrez.