A gentle kiss as prelude to courage. LA 09/14/2006

My old friend Anastacia wrote me yesterday and requested a poem. I don't usually take requests, but she is the one friend who both stood by me and was critical of my second marriage (and nailed her critique, by the way)...so I owe her one.

Besides, it was a poem I was thinking of doing anyway. She also left the West Coast to head East and feels the same sense of loss of the skies to the West when the grapefruit sun slides into the water and the lights of Los Angeles set fire to the clouds. She wanted me to speak of the Santa Ana Winds, from which I draw strength (I am not the same man who landed two days ago, but I am much the same man I was a decade ago...there is an ancient, new light in these eyes) and the beaches and the sound of the waves and the smell of the Pacific Ocean (so very different than the smell of the Atlantic).

My response to her was this, and I quote:

"I will write you something in the next day or two...to be honest, I have not touched the beach yet, but will later today or tomorrow. That's when the final link will be reforged. It is like going to dinner with an old lover, then braving a gentle kiss...and wondering if you have the courage to lay with her, one more time, to see if the magic that you know is there, remains."

After I wrote that, I realized it was, in and of itself, somewhat poetic, so I just wanted to share it.

In unrelated notes, I see where the college football sports writer for the LA Times places West Virginia University as #1 in his college football rankings...let's go, Mountaineers and kick the terrapin out of Maryland tonight...

and Happy Belated Birthday to Jan, the mother of my children. I can give you no gift you would accept or understand, except my gratitude for their existence.