CALIFORNIAN SOUNDS

A drop-out Sociology Ph.D.,
the walls of his clapboard shack
lined with all the books
he had not sold yet ('they make
good insulation') and a squat-dog
pioneer stove with the flue
straight up like a cocked tail
to keep him company -

he meant to retreat, to think and write
about the individual in society,
and came to ground in a sea
of field-grass and hay-stubble,
seed misting the horizon to a brown haze.
He listened to his thoughts and the bamboo
shifting, the sharp leaves
scraping together, hedging him in . . .
...