welcome to angwin

By Sylvia Griffiths

a small place - not so much a town as an interruption on the road that travels up howell mountain winding through forested hills from vineyard rich napa valley below - a few buildings straddle the road - on the right some orphaned sidewalks line the entrance to pacific union college and go nowhere - on the left - next to some tennis courts and a playing field - stands a “plaza” - with credit union, post office, hardware store, laundromat, market and crumbling black-topped parking lot - there are no traffic lights but there is a gas station on the corner where four stop signs mark the intersection of howell mountain road and college avenue and the end of town - there the road begins its steep descent down a twisting tree shadowed grade into pope valley and its rolling hills of newly planted vines……….

a quiet place
seventeen hundred feet above the valleys below
almost secretive in its privacy
homes people
poverty wealth
equally hidden
discretely camouflaged by
stands of pine fir golden leafed oak
that shelter narrow winding lanes
running like arteries
through the forest’s spreading body

here there is time for solitude
for observing small details of nature’s ever changing days
winter green grasses born after first rain
distant toyon’s clutch of reddened berries
autumn leaves that move like birds in the chilling breeze
for hearing simple sound
roaming chatter of clustering quail
high speaking winds that call to the distant sea
soundless lullaby of a silent moon dark night

a secluded place
for remembering
the beat of time’s ancient rhythms
the forgiveness of nature’s renewing grace
the slow dancing dream of seasons change

here time
with the
morning fog
slips ghostlike
through
the mountain’s
sheltering trees