101

Hillocks washed in sunset light. Glorious yellowing clouds outline distant hills. Vineyards, row upon row, snake across the undulating landscape. Suddenly, green fields. Straight railroad tracks sculpt a hillside, once round, now a straight cliff. Oil derricks decorate the hay-colored hills like kinetic sculpture. The furry sun dips behind the mountains. The landscape stretches in all directions. Clouds darken, pinken. Green-black trees decorate the low hills. A black field gets a mechanical shower.

Where is the joy that, generations ago, I imagine, washed over the hills like this sunset light? The joy is the light; the light is life. A huge, dilapidated green barn shades a single cow. What is she thinking?

Was there a time before these dipping wires were strung across paradise? The only straight line is the highway. White men did this. Lined with big, straight sticks, once trees, the highway leads nowhere.

A sign for Pinnacles Monument. Canal Street. RV parking. Topo Ranch Event Center, like a stadium, a godless warehouse. Denny’s. A Valero station (Valero loves us so much, they want to destroy California by gutting our clean air laws.)

God loved us so much, he showered us with this limitless Beauty. He hates us so much He will force us to watch while it is raped and tortured. Maybe there is a next world where we can live in this endless Beauty…

Can’t you understand why we would want to believe? Can you endure the thought that we have to watch this horror and then be consigned to oblivion?

Meanwhile, the pink and orange clouds surround the hills in an unbroken, jagged line, the bright red taillights break the new darkness like insects. I am silent. She is silent. The road goes on forever.

Advertisement