~
Santa Anas when you blow
across the Southern California landscape
in January
you clear the air of particulates
that no longer matter:
pollutants,
dry earth,
and dead skin cells alike.
~
When I wake before sunrise
I see the branches on the Ficus benjamina outside my window
shake like a dog right out of water.
Your wind burrows through the thin rafters of my flat
as if to say I can shake you better than the earthquakes do.
The bright mid-morning sky is deeper, bluer.
It still is winter after all.
My mind clears.
I smile to the car next to me on the freeway.
Until now I forgot what it’s like to look someone in the eye.
The mountain ranges to the East are closer today.
They look me in the eye waiting for my thank you,
my appreciation for the way they compress the cold winds from the North
into a warm desert oscillation that brings wind farms to life.
~
By afternoon
you fold across the region;
your arms and legs flatten
like an ingenue reading her script
on a floating chaise longue
in a pool
in the Hills.
When the Fahrenheit peaks,
your tongue laps the smoke plume above the Angeles.
The smell permeates my open, thirsty pores.
People rear their heads to the sky like deer during hunting season;
urbanites revert to native instincts.
Our proofs of progress
are almost trivial today.
~
As the sun sets
and red hot irons
spread beyond Catalina,
weaves of hot and cold air
interlace along the coast.
The darkening San Bernardino Mountains retreat
taking the freeways with them.
It’s a confusing winter evening
of shedding layers.
I should
be cold
in
my t-shirt
shouldn’t I?
~
When another molt
is complete
and winds calm,
a fresh skyline glows
beyond the silhouettes of palm trees
in a new skin.
~
literophanes.com 
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