the silhouette of digger pines

and dead diggers  clawed  interspersed with live oak

                                                                                      console me

etched

up against mauve plum purple grey skies

                                                                they console me

                                                                                               black bats furrow the dusk 

the first evening star blinks   then is suddenly shrouded by a crawling marine layer         

eight leagues inland from the sea

these are natural consolations I cant ignore

  

                                                                                                      soon the star reappears 

its cold burning light is a steadyfast companion  she offers me her shoulder  her embrace           she is unlike  anything else

                               there is nothing and no one who can compete with these consolations 

when I suffer                                                 

                        or when I am troubled 

their nature has always provide me comfort   has always encouraged my willfulness and unnerving adamancy

and yet  while I know one day my eyes will be taken from them

                                                                                              they will never be taken from me

is there a more perfect solace     anything more confiding            or more unquestioning

                                                           

                                                                         this night the trees the bats the star       found me

2020,  Twosday,  10  6. 14