She
remembered the
high tower of gull-white stone bowing
into the fresh cerulean morning sky
close to the sea, closer
to the bay.
So high it was there existed only cirrus and
dark-winged frigate birds between it and spruce
green unspruced hills of Oakland beyond the
water. Below the white, other
regions of the massive structure catered to
lesser beings, both guests and businessmen,
but high up in the smooth white
where it cornered to ensure all the thriving city
a banquet before her, there
she had existed, grown, like a fairy princess
cupped in petals scented through time
in the sun she danced
on velvet carpeting, sipped tea, tested
sliced ivory pear with the tip of her pale tongue.
Music in the evenings issued
from her mother's harp, her aunt's piano,
and the freighters crossing out to sea.
Then
she journeyed south
and with her vested father,
high-collared, in
polished boots, had toured the gardens
of the southland warm, so mellow, all
inherent tans, turquoises, grays, all mellow, soft, gently hued
in the warmth, in the
mild and lilting breezes which came from the sea in
the afternoons and brushed the orchards and the geese and
scarcely rustled palms, went softly riffling through pepper trees
reminding her of her mother's
fingers music through the shining leaves.
Autumn afternoons the redcars rumbled from
the flat to the bases of the cupping hills. Horses
proud in duty flashed their tails and tossed
their heads; their eyes of plum or sepia
were like kings' and polo
stars'.
It was an amazing time.