The photos of the orange sky, smoke dense enough that you could look at the sun directly as we do the moon, photos that I doubled-checked by asking if they were taking last night or this morning?! A silence fills the air, birds are not singing, wild animals are coming into the neighborhoods in search of food, water, shade, refuge... Ash blowing as if snowing... the photos today came in from family and friends living in California... eerie, frightening, terribly awful, unforgiving, devastating, sad... 

My family is okay, but they have been living under an unbelievable blanket of smoke. The last several years California has seen tremendous fires sweep through raising havoc but this year it is unprecedented the air quality at its worse threatening their health, the devastation, loss of lives, homes, the intense bravery and sheer grit of the people fighting to control the beast.

California!

Below is a post I wrote in 2014

 

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Northern California during late autumn,

golden valley, harvested fields, the labor of love, geese in flight.

Country roads leading near and far.

 

 

 

Clouds adding texture between the valley and the foothills.

A single tree stands on stage circled by the Sierras and the Mendocino mountains

 

 

 

A barn in the middle of a harvested rice field.

I grew up in this valley,

under these clouds,

surrounded by rice fields and orchards,

in wide-open spaces,

with long grey paved roads,

With Shasta, Lassen, the mountain range as a protective embrace,

and barns in the middle of seemingly nowhere, but at the center of my life.

 

 

The foothills north of San Francisco are rolling gold,

The fence posts holding the visible beauty breathing space as freedom,

this is the first sign that my childhood home is nearing.

My heart expands,

I feel the rolling gold, rolling gold, rolling gold...

 

 

 

 

 

Pouring into the Sacramento valley.

 

 

 

Oh, distant geese that fly overhead where are you going?

Rolling gold along the long grey paved road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of the valley, Mount Shasta rises.

What do I see, the valley, the mountain, the peaks, or the valley?

In honesty, it depends on the day.

The varied landscape of emotion and view.

 

 

 

 

A journey far and wide.

With its twist turns is never a straight shot.

Blurred are the borders, vast is the horizon,

Home.

 

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Oh, California ...