Humboldt

I remember you
all across the rounded mountains
where the sun blazes soft in the grass
and shadows carpet the slopes

where the fog hangs heavy in the inlets
where the country breaks free
of the highway and fences
and the houses hang low against the sky

far from the temerity
and tangled stands of buildings
the sky scraped and bruised
the canyons and their jagged wash
of houses, the angled rivers
and all their gleaming refuse

where the sun dives clean into the water
instead of falling, flailing into the hills
where night comes without dying
and things pass into each other unbroken

I remember you are the light, flickering
out over the water
licking the waves and rocks, together
if I come some cold northern night
to the damp sand beneath your beam
what I trace--will you light it?
when the tide carries it into the dark