Back in California

SAN FRANCISCO--
After jet-lagging nights of sirens and shouts
and songless mornings of pigeons only--
concrete cliff-dwellers swirling in urban canyons
like plastic bags--
I am stunned to stumble on Alamo Square,
that tiny oasis
where a hummingbird beats his wings on his morning flower routine;
American Robins bathe in an accidental puddle.
New World birds bring back an old familiar world,
suddenly,
like the slap of a cold wave on the side of that sailboat
slicing the bay beneath a world-famous bridge.

A new morning takes me there again--
sharp halcyon sky of summers past,
charcoal cypresses etched against it,
yellow dots of mustard blossoms highlighting the foreground.
Then that scent of eucalyptus fills the brain--
naturalized California tree, like me:
ancestral roots from another continent, shallow;
ill-suited to the local fire cycle
as my skin is to the reigning sun,
but a friend to butterflies and hummingbirds.

Now I realize how I've missed you.