Elegy To Calafia, Part 1

dear Calafia, i saw you on the day you died standing on that cliff with fire in your hair, wind blowing it back standing on that cliff with not a care in the world with the forest behind your back and the ocean wide vast sparkling ultramarine your arms were spread and your head turned up and i thought i saw you smile at me before you, with your golden eyes and tangled scarlet locks sun-kissed wood-brown skin, stepped forward and plunged into the deep dark sea. dear Calafia, you left a whole world behind, full of redwood forests on rugged mountains on fruitful soil growing almonds and tangerines and the call of the wolves, echoing everywhere east of eden, this place you called paradise paradise, with its wild coast, humming with the booming calls of sea lions and the chirps of birds circling far above in the cloudless sky, and i must confess – that i hated you for a moment there, more than i had ever loved you because you left us behind too. dear Calafia, don’t you remember how we sat in a circle around the campfire telling jokes and anecdotes, roasting marshmallows as the forest came alive with its own nightlife you said it was so different from the neon lights and smog clouding the air, down in the city you said you loved it here, you’d live out here and your eyes met mine as you spoke, and don’t you remember how we stumbled down the curved road drunk on our success at life and love, the streetlights blurred and the moment teetering on a precipice you said we’d live forever, our hands linked as the world spun on around us.