ASCENT OF BRIONES
   (Briones Regional Park, CA)


                      I.
             The Drive

   "  The world's a robin's egg
     From which we each
     Will someday hatch.

     The Sun we see's the Light
     Shining through a hole
    We've somehow pecked."
               ______

Setting out yet again this morning
On the first Journey ever,
"The Ancient One" in the tape player.

Miotke sings, "We are 
The children of Paradise,
Children living free.
We have no possessions
'But the feeling inside that says,
 "Love the New Humanity.' "

The road I drive twists up
Past the glorious hillsides
Where the rich live country lives
A mile from the center of town.

Finally, a long fence bears a sign:
BRIONES REGIONAL PARK.


                 II
          The Ascent

"Morning brings the Sun again.
Afternoon is fraught with pain.
Twilight's  respinte from  the strain
Till sleep can wash the world clean."
                ______


I ascend
Up a steep path,
Sun already hot.

The uphill grade's
Uncomfortable.
I sing His Name
Whenever I take a breath.

Perhaps the way
Will level out,
But on an unknown trail
Even a downhill stretch
Leaves me on guard,
Not knowing
Where it's leading.

Across the valley,
Diablo's peaks
Peek through the canopy
Of leaves. Occasionally,
A clearing leaves
The view quite unobstructed,
White air around
The mountain
like a mantle
'round some god.

A hawk flies by,
On wing just like
A human life, which lasts
A century at most
From perch to perch,
And more than half
Of this one, somehow, past.

The path has 
Levelled out.
I'm glad
I kept on going.


                 III
  A Summit, of Sorts

  A crosslegged holy man
  Sits on a hill above our city,
  Silently repeating
  The mantram of God's Name.

               ______

Finally, an alpine meadow.
Tall grass and yellow wildflowers.
A place to sit and rest.

Down there,
That miniature city
Holds the people
And the places
That I love.

Up here
Thoughts flit about
Like birds:

"Dark birds
Fly into the Sun,
Disappear into the One.
Then you may fly back to me
Cleansed, as white as you can be."

In ancient times, they say,
Someone started a monastery
High on a hill
That overlooked a town.
At any one time
Half the people lived in town,
The other half, atop the hill
Praying for the people
Down below.
Every six months they would switch.

Travellers who came
Through the town
Would tell their stories
Of the Peace they'd found.

           *

The holy man
On the hill
Has forgotten his name.

I remember him from childhood,
But he lived in a different place.
It was a scene from a movie:
An old, bearded man lived
In a white hut in the desert.
He'd been there many years--
Wrote, but did not speak
Till one visitor finally came along.
The hut was a shocking,
Sunbleached white.
What movie?
Was this Moses?
I don't remember.

                  IV.
Back To The Miniature City

Rising and descending,
In an hour I'm home,
Writing this.
It's awfully nice, sometimes,
To be outdoors and never see
A human being.

I'm back
In the city I prayed for,
But the Holy Man
Is there, beyond us
Even as we are still beyond,
Praying for ourselves.