In the gloom of June
Amid a plankton bloom
I shipwrecked on purple sand
I was a wayfaring stranger, a Burl Ives wannabe
I couldn’t find the Point Sur light
There was no up or down
Just the pull of gravity
I stumbled along Highway One
Waterfalls spilled through canyons
I saw the face of the Creator
As the Earth intended it to look
The Pacific beckoned me to swim
I can’t unsee what I saw
I can’t unsee it
Tormented by nightmares of aluminum ferrules
I came upon a wake of vultures
Pecking at Robinson Jeffers’ corpse
They hissed, “Give up, you Kerouac-off. No more romance can be wrung from the smoke of a train.”
Dissipating like the cliff-clinging fog
I continued on
Past the Henry Miller Library
Through summer rains and chilly nights
Through the meadows of poison oak
Through the vaults of Erowid
I met a hipster in a hot tub
At the Esalen Institute
I asked him, “How many times must I ask for forgiveness before I’m convinced I deserve it?”
He said, “Shame is just a human invention. It has no basis in reality.”
I couldn’t tell whether he preached of Gaia or guy-stuff
Still, he showed me the light I’d been searching for
At sunrise, trees emerged from a tangle of silhouettes
The Pacific beckoned me to swim
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