Oh California, happy birthday, you were made a state 170 years ago today

september 9th, 1850 when the united states was young 

California was the final frontier, wild west, manifest destiny

(pay no attention to all the people who lived here before that, mexicans and cowboys and the indians who told the donner party that no one crosses that path at that time in the winter but naaah let’s go on ahead and look what happened to them, white men always ignoring ancient wisdom

but we name the pass now for them now and not the people whose advice they didn’t heed

why is that)

Oh California, how do you feel today?

sometimes i weep for you, your smoky skies, your lands too dry

we don’t want another dust bowl the signs used to say along the 5 when i was a kid

Oh California, precarious state along the pacific

the aqueduct running along the freeway, once i saw it rushing, rich river valley

Oh euphrates, oh paradise

Oh California, you are too dry it hurts

Oh California!

returning from labor day weekend

my dad just bought a house in gold country, in calaveras county named for skulls

(why?) (and where are those jumping frogs mark twain saw?)

dad’s dream finally came true, he bought the little house all his own

with no sisters, no nieces and nephews around

only walnut trees, a chestnut, apples, pears: bosc and green anjou, plums, cherries, vines of green grapes and over there are the purple ones, a blackberry bramble, an italian cypress, a pine, oaks, oleander

deer visit at night and in the morning, alongside all sorts of birds: hummingbirds, mourning doves, scrub jays, robins, quail, woodpeckers (two kinds), and a small bird i didn’t know

i saw two praying mantises, a dragonfly, and one crow flew over the orchard often going 

“haaw, haaw, haaw”

there was a heatwave while we were there, the hottest days all over the state

LA had its hottest day ever, 120° downtown, how can people deny climate change

high winds followed the heat wave so pg&e shut off all the power along the foothills

of the sierra nevada mountain range

public safety power shut off: wildfire risk, too dry, winds too high

power went out tuesday morning, just after midnight the fan in our room shut off

and there was silence all around, only the wind outside rustling leaves

until everyone else’s generators click on, they shutter and motor off into the night like lawnmowers going somewhere else 

the house my dad bought is an old farmhouse from the 1860’s (California you were only 10)

in the kitchen is an ancient behemoth of a wood burning stove

montague the stove says, san francisco 1850 

in the 70’s the house was updated with a new kitchen: an electric stove and an electric water heater 

my dad is on the phone with the generator salesman and when my dad tells the salesman he has an electric water heater and stove to power

the salesman says well, you’re behind the curve there with a laugh and my dad rolls his eyes

my dad buys a small coleman generator to power to the refrigerator

and he brings out his green coleman camping stove for us to cook on for the next two days

Oh California, how many summers i spent as a child traveling along the 5 north from los angeles

up the 395 to mammoth: mojave desert, olancha, independence, big pine, bishop

for a week of camping, hiking, catching rainbow trout and cooking them in butter and onions until their eyes are white and poofy and my dad says here, taste these

all the meals on camping trips my dad cooked on this green coleman stove

my dad is always plucking a tiny plant or leaf from the ground or a tree

he rolls it between his thumb and first finger, smell this, he says, what does it remind you of?

one summer: sonora, murphys, columbia, mt. lassen, then redwoods in santa cruz

another summer: heatwave in sonoma and no ac in the car, then south to the golden gate bridge 

san francisco so cold we didn’t need air conditioning, we roll the windows down to let the fog in

and shiver as we take south van ness through the city 

earlier that summer: camping at carpinteria beach and in the night a raccoon (we think) stole one of my dad’s leather shoes 

Oh, California, you gave my dad’s parents refuge after ww2 in poland

my dad, the son of immigrants, didn’t learn english till kindergarten

one of those childhood trips along the 395: Manzanar

remember that, California? what would you have said about that? and what would you say about now, California? 

this president and the government and children imprisoned again, except this time they are from a different place

i know that your wisdom is more eternal and deeper, the truth of a redwood, a river, a motherlode of gold 

Oh California, i know you deserve better than this

i know your old plates quake because they have to

the skies of san francisco blaze a frightening, apocalyptic orange 

when we sail home on the bay bridge, wildfire smoke mixed with thick fog

the fog disperses the orange light in a strange and hazy way

although it’s only noon all the lights downtown are on

the buildings are lit up and the streetlights so it feels like late evening or sunrise

and the strangest thing is the air doesn’t even smell like smoke 

it smells salty and damp like the ocean

Oh California, is this a warning? 

on your 170th birthday: smoke and wildfires and the proximity of climate disaster

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