Poems & Play

For Camille

They say she died.
As if a life so liquid and large
could simply stop. 

No, she moves on, 
overflowing the banks, 
washing away broken branches and fallen leaves. 

Born of rose petals and cannonades, 
A flash of light crossing the cosmos.
Laughing out loud at a Sunday café
And long roads taken on summer afternoons. 

She dreams of the orange blossoms of LA
before the concrete closed in,
follows a distant beacon in an unknown direction
and lets it take her all the way home. 

Chasing white rabbits and motorcycle men,
Fellini recast in San Francisco togas, 
grabbing cargo ships to the gates of the gods
when rusty autos break in New Mexico.
But on she goes, face toward the sun. 

Her eye flares, clear and blue, 
just before she sinks through the event horizon, 
all light and dust swirling in her wake
as she distorts time and space

And we all wind up here at the café of the world,
one by one filing in to remember Aztec monuments and Hollywood leading men, 
Cyclades blue and the murals of the Mission,
and raise a glass, one more time, for Camille.