I was about to throw away some moldy carpet from under my home, when it unfolded and revealed a friend glimpsed briefly a few years back.

Seems she's doing quite well.  The white spots are carpet debris.  I got a glass of warm water and attempted to rinse her, a kindness not appreciated.

She crawled away behind a potted plant in regal and insulted fashion, and I decided to leave her alone.

There's something mystical but fragile about these creatures, I think.

And I wish her many more years of salamander happiness.

(I have since learned she is an Ensatina, a type of lungless salamander that exudes a toxic substance from her/his tail)

Back in San Simeon Again (Definitely not to be sung to the tune of Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle.")

Walking my dog
Under a waning moon
I approach the beach
While surf cannons explode.

High tide but low profile waves, 
wide rushes against a sandy beach
Mick Jagger lips
Lunar lit and starlight glow.

So warm and windy 

I think of Santa Barbara 

Nights like these,

Adventures of well spent youth.

Try to relax, become the beach
despite a silhouette, human 
off to my left.
Just a kindred soul I tell myself.

Who shares a love, I tell myself, 
for mysteries, night and surf.
But I pocket a large rock, 
feeling strangely undefended.

Where did I adopt this fear
Only two months absence?
Maybe the novel I'm reading,
murders on beaches, Sands of Death.

Castle flickering on the ridge,
reassuring but somehow different.
Perhaps they've illuminated another wing,
Or maybe I'm just plain wrong.

So I escort the dog up a hill
Seeing another silhoutte, lanky and tall,
approaching head on, and think of Andrei
But it's not my friend.

I feel adrift, out of place
like a man returning 
to country changed
As Vets must feel when coming home.

Are we stardust--
And golden?
Billion year old carbon--
And can we get back to the garden?

This poem ends.
But the wounded by war
Feel pain and live with fear
Think of them. 


San Simeon 10/26/12
12:17