Yesterday

Photo: Diego Fernandes

Yesterday, a last vestige of summer lingered
Like warm arms and a farewell kiss

The trees were green still hardly a tint
Of autumn color stirring under bird trills

California still golden under a gentle sun
Just taking in a final passionate breath

Today October’s wind blew from the west
Knocking red and yellow leaves to ground

Chasing birds into flight toward Mexico
The cool breeze tendrils chill late grapes

Cold weather friends are smiling again
Jeering summer’s hasty departure

They will be gleeful and grateful for frost
After winter rains transmute dust to mud

I will be grateful for rain to hide my tears
My heart never tires of flying in the sun

The Sun Was Shining

PHOTO: Diego Fernandes 2007

The sun was shining today
And I wanted to writhe naked,
I wanted to roll like an excited dog
In all that early green grass.

I’m ready for the itch.
Feeling tiny blue flowers
With white and yellow centers
Here and there on the hillside.

The meadow, once hidden
Is now surrounded
Civilization moved in with
Windows looking watchfully.

The hills around up and down
Near and far house littered
Every one crowding the open
Staring furtively from the trees.

Grand McMansions with
Hilltop window disdain
From up and up, to near and far
Spying on the open fields.

My hidden dell isn’t.
I wanted to sprawl naked
Absorbing sun like a sponge
Feeling those hot fingers.

I wanted a sun massage.
I know it’s still winter but
The sun was shining today
And I wanted to lay naked.

All those windows gave me
Guilt and immodest modesty
Got the better of me
So I merely strolled.

Water of Life

Throughout my life I have felt a certain affinity for the character of California's seasons. Their unusual nature seems to affect the commentary made by residents and non-residents. I have heard on many occasions individuals protest that it would be hard for them to live in California because it has "no seasons". I have also heard individuals state that they wouldn't live in any other place. Famously, when Julia Child moved back to her native Santa Barbara and someone asked her if she wouldn't miss New England's seasons she replied, "no, I like it just like this every day."

It is a mistake to think that California has no seasons. The entire thousand mile length has seasons aplenty for anyone who cares to notice but sometimes those periods are strangely at odds with the calendar. It is true in California that you could drive from one end of the state to the other and find in any given month the weather of any given season. It is also true that a season in California may last only a month, or a week. You have to enjoy and experience them when they happen. Here the seasons encourage an enjoyment of the moment.

In the eastern part of the United States there is a saying that if you don't like the weather, wait ten minutes. I have often told eastern friends in California that if they didn't like the weather they would have to wait...and wait. There is sometimes a sameness about how the weather plays out but it is also true that my state is a true study in contrasts. I have often walked out my door on a beautifully clear and sunny day in January that looks like it ought to be a day in April or May only to be greeted by frigid air and frozen ground or looked outside at a bleak gray day in the same month thinking it would be cold only to step outside the same door to be wrapped in near tropical heat. These are surprises that I genuinely love.

I frequently wonder how global warming will change California's character. We are certainly a state hungry for water over which residents have fought real battles; and I mean with real guns. California's water law is very complicated. Very, very complicated. The problem has always been getting the water from where it is to where it is needed (or wanted). The obvious corollary to that problem is who wants it. The character of global warming seems to be most of all a change in the behavior of water, as ice, as snow, as rain, as ocean.

Water is necessary for life; this is a truism. Every plant from lichens to giant redwoods and creatures from single cell amoebas to blue whales must have water in one form or another. Life needs water. People are living creatures and they need water also, and while they are not the only creature to work up ways to control water, they certainly produce the most complicated ways of controlling it, and in California we have probably produced the most complicated system on the planet for accessing, storing and transporting and processing water.

What if California experiences a longer drought than experienced historically? What if we experience greatly wetter years? What if we get one of those combinations in contrast that I mentioned earlier: a very, very wet season and a very, very dry hot season? What if we get say (and I am sure it could happen) a reversal of when dry and wet "normally" occur? I don't believe our political system is set up very well to handle such events. I don't believe any political system is set up to handle such events.

Anyone that knows me would say this sounds strange coming from me but I put a lot of faith in the systems as they are, mostly because there isn't anything else. I also know that kind of belief is not well founded. It is just that I hope that the systems in place will work when there is a crisis. The California Office of Emergency Preparedness encourages individuals and families to keep emergency supplies on hand for earthquakes and similar natural disasters. COEP will gladly send anyone a list of what they consider necessary for such emergencies. So far I don't believe they have given any public announcements about possible global warming effects. How could they?

Could a possible effect be a major alteration of seasonal characteristics? The answer seems to be an unequivocal yes. Might those changes in seasons affect some parts of the world and leave other parts untouched, at least climatically? Possibly, but wouldn't changes elsewhere put unbelievable stresses on "untouched" climates? My guess is, very probably.

For instance, California can not help but be affected by changes to sea level. A change in sea level in any direction will alter coastlines. Harbors and bays, beaches, wetlands like those around San Francisco and San Pablo Bays, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could all be inundated with a small rise or dessicated with a drop in sea level. Most, if not all of California's waterways are already major areas of contention and acrimony between agriculture, developers, environmental groups, recreational interests, government offices and bureaus at both state and federal levels, corporate interests and ordinary citizens who depend in one way or another on these resources. What should the priorities be and who should set them? Who indeed, is setting them now?

I can not help but think preventative discussions and action such as Governor Schwarzenegger's attempts at levee repair are truly in order. It does not matter who gets the credit although politicians and corporate interests would have us believe so; someone must start the discussion.

The future of people on the leftcoast depend on it.