I Am

I am from the armpit of the San Francisco Bay Area
where oranges, prunes, almonds, and apricots grew aplenty
when Silicon Valley
arose from farm rich soil
while .com companies
died by the thousands.

I grew on grandmother’s adages—from hay is for horses, pigs and cows
to even the devil was once an angel
horses sweat, people perspire,
and women glow
to a man without guts
will live on his knees.

I emerged from a grove of pitless cherries and Sun Valley raisins
where Togo’s and Bob’s Big Boy paved over lost orchards
built meat and potatoes diners alongside
broccoli and blue cheese restaurants
while Winchell’s Donuts and Starbucks
coffee shops monopolized corners.

I moved North in a heartbeat to the Fillmore, Avalon, and Winterland Ballroom
following folk singing minstrels to nature’s fervent flower children,
becoming a tie-dye rocker,
shadowing a psychedelic shaman,
settling as change’s agent in step with
self-consciously clever academics.

I lived out my life an English Professor in the Evergreen Valley foothills,
yet uprooted myself to bleed freely, retiring in the Pacific Northwest
beginning anew amid cedar windbreaks
in abandoned logging forests
near Hood Canal’s bend, not far
from ferries to Seattle’s Space Needle.