EARLY SANTA ANA - Poem

           This night the atmospheric caveats
            come in gently like Chopin;
            they bask and fondle
            the fuzzed cheek, the goblet aimed hand.
            The dry breeze lifts hairs
            rustling them
            like warm tiny leaves.
    
            Santa Ana bathes the skin
            with its aerial saliva
            troughing through the canyons,
            canyon tongues that spit their gusts
            into the huge Angeles basin,
            a basin no longer wild with
            arching ferns and alluvial fans,
            mug-wort and lily,
            tides and spring floods.

            But the wind is still here,
            stroking or maddening
            with its heaves, sighs or curt salutes,
            speaking in sepia tones
            thrown into the sky.