Place, by Sheila Siegel

Place, by Sheila Siegel

Youth and young womanhood
Spent in sunny Southern California
Lazy days, warm caressing air
Strolling, jogging on soft sand beaches
Jumping into the warm sea with
Joy and abandon to cool off
Hot skin turned a dark shade of brown every summer
Lithe, healthy body in a small bikini

This is the idealized pictures I remember
Forgetting the terrible traffic nightmares
The orange/brown smog so thick I cried for the need to inhale

Love prompted a move to the
Redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains
Surrounded by a tall wall of green
Mornings sending thin tendrils of fog
Reaching in through the trees
Dappled sunlight, horses, goats
Wonderful bird song – is it a nightingale?
Wind sending a shower of yellow leaves
Flying across the yard in the fall

So beautiful and peaceful but disorienting
This was someone else’s life, or, perhaps, summer camp
All my friends and family still back in L.A.
I was lonely
Even with my new love to keep me warm on those cold nights

Then rain and more rain in the winters
Feeling cold and damp, mold growing in my shoes
Car drowned in a bottomless puddle
Prompting yet another move
Out of the mountains, down to the ocean

Back to the seashore
The waves crashing
The sun sparkling diamonds on the water
Pelicans, otters, seals, surfers
A new community


Water not as warm for splashing in
Body not as lithe and healthy
As in my Southern California days
But familiar and comfortable surroundings
That feel like home to me