Of course we know it as the faker's holiday,
That pious day at the mall worshipping the usual.
You know, the pajaritas fly north in April,
Plump and rested and warm with young,
Certain in the wisdom of the genes.
Of course you fly south.
Like your back I know the great California valley
Of straight rowed farms and squared-off sloughs,
As though God's protractor blew
A seal or popped a cork or whatever those things do.
I drove north that Good Friday, that day begun in oil and musk,
And held soft, a shell presaged an hour of glory.
I know whom I love and where I am.
I know the smile no camera finds.
I know life is a breath, a straight road gathers moss;
That such a day begun in sacramental whiskeys
Could end with the too familiar miles again in power.
I know that to pull such an hour from such a day and call it
sacred has its precedents.
I know that love redeeems like nothingness.
I know that when I make my camp it'll be back a way from the
mouth of a mighty stream.
