Crooked Spirituality

She knows her guardian
angel is not perfect—
those wings don’t align,
the right one is slightly

bent,

he sometimes squints
when he takes off
over the redwoods
to sail above Big Sur again.

The Sighting

Cold trapped beneath
redwoods outside
the Henry Miller Memorial

Library doesn’t deter me
from standing against evening grain
to see you straight

ahead performing. I know that sound
of aching beauty won’t last. I only wish
those graceful branches could

suspend
the deep wails
from your blues harp the way

these trees, those mountains, the rocks, that ocean hold

steady. You pack up
your guitars and you’re gone
down Highway One. I don’t see you

drive away, but I know
I can feel the air stir
from notes dropping

around substantial roots.

Across Highway One
from where I slept, from where a hummingbird swept
into the brush to alert me to another

day, I wait.

Fog never fully rolls back to reveal
those mountaintops but allows the sun to be exposed
and exposing

as hours progress. Seams between
sky, ocean, cliff
recede. I’m not waiting—I’m opening receptacles

to turn-outs and drop-offs and rock-ons.