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Still for a While
We get a Santa Ana
and wake to streets
full of branches
and trash and a palm tree
that’s crashed down
through the wrought iron fence
around the city yard.
Today, the air is still
for a while, but the winds
always come back,
or they have so far.
The train tracks are
covered in tumbleweeds.
This air that has come down
from the highland deserts
smells clean.
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News of the Weather
The first weather report I get
is when the airport shifts
its flight pattern directly over us,
and I know the winds are coming.
The breaks in our conversation
as the engines pass above
soon become natural and unnoticed
unless one of us points them out.
The eucalyptus across the train tracks
looks shaggy today. I wonder
what it will look like tomorrow.
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Just Us
The flags on top of the tax service
and immigration building are torn
to feathers by the Santa Ana winds,
and that feels like a metaphor
for something, but I’m not sure what.
The winds have always felt
more symbol than real to me.
They’re so dry they suck
the water right out of you.
We can see for miles across
the normally smoggy sky, and at night
we get stars. All of these things
might mean something like someone
is out there telling us something
with great clarity that I could see
except that I am limited to being just who I am.
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Baldy Winds
After the winds
have died down
here in the valley,
they are still rising
a mist of snow
blowing it off the top
of Mt. Baldy,
which I can see
headed straight up
Euclid Avenue.
It’s still early
on a Sunday morning,
and I’m the only one
out in the world
made clean
by the Santa Anas.
The dawn has no transition
through filtered air.
One moment it’s night,
and the next it’s full day.
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The New Neighbors
When the Santa Ana picks up,
some long haul truckers
pull off the freeways
and park in the neighborhood.
We can see their cabs
in the pale blue lights
of their computers
as they wait out the winds.
When we walk the dog
down the street in the evening,
we invade their space.
This is now their backyard.
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About the Author, John Brantingham: I was the first poet laureate of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, and my work has been featured in hundreds of magazines and in Writer’s Almanac and The Best Small Fictions 2016. I have eleven books of poetry and fiction including my latest fiction collection Life: Orange to Pear (Bamboo Dart Press). I teach at Mt. San Antonio College.
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Image Credit: Impressions of Southern California by Chase Dimock
As It Ought To Be 