365 Jobs, Day 209: Big Creek, California (Pop 385)

Big Creek, California (Pop 385)            

In Big Creek all the men
wear yellow hardhats
and park their pickups in the middle of the road
because when they stop, the whole town stops
except for the occasional
wandering black bear
and the water always rushing
through silver pipes
under sugar pine and manzanita
down granite cliffs
while hawks circle soundlessly
in Sierra updrafts,
water from winter
from two miles high
dropping through mountain plumbing,
humming
through hefty turbines
attached by wire
to all the lights
in Los Angeles.






(I wrote this poem in July of 1984.  I was struck by how the whole town seemed to exist for one never-ending job, how it could seem so busy and yet so serene as the electrons kept flowing to L.A.  I wonder if anything has changed...)