It has nothing to do with me or you
Except as trowel to rip the sod loose
Of Sactown, in this case, with its Hornets and Bee,
Its vague air of Paris, moss-covered trees,
Horse-driven sleighs along Q Street.
Harp players sing in Greek before the Court of Appeals
As Sokrates presides over a house of cardboard
By the hat-clad worker statues with California frowns
Before the people's cupola, where a golden bear
Attacks a horseman with a spear, some kind of symbol
Meant to resonate across the state,
Polykleitis doryphores, in an omen of gratitude.
Will the meaning be unpeeled down the street,
At some local haunt like Fat's, by the riverboats
And brothel balustrades? In the River City candy store,
With Walnettos, Chico Sticks, Bulls Eyes and Mary Janes?
There's columns to nowhere in Pioneer Park,
A Fairbanks scale in front of Steamers for San Francisco,
Though the locomotive train is all the history you'll need
Near the proverbial downtown ferris wheel ...
We must seek explanations elsewhere, signs for
Weedpatch, Safetyville, the Elkhorn Saloon
Plum as the day is long, past Schnitzer Steel,
The Forklift Diner, "Cannabis soil delivered,"
Mosquito and Zinfandel streets, Fondue 152,
The hills of Folsom, that golden El Dorado grass,
Shingle Springs, down Mother Lode Road,
The Buttercup Pantry, Panic and Swoon,
The Scarlett Halo, a memorial for the Druids
Of California, then driveways over the crick
On Lotus Road, roan horses staring down the hills
In Sleepy Hollow, stagecoaches in the fields,
Vans by the river, barns and toolsheds turning
Into art, towards Rescue, where one can buy me a river
At the River Store. There's a cabin there,
Barely human anymore, where gold comes in
When the river floods. A family member owned it
And we don't know what to do
Except dig with restaurant spoons for crystals
Hidden in the brush. Layers of truth, some you may know,
Some you won't. It lives within being, not a knowing.
