--seed.....

Your poem stirred some grey matter and what floated to the surface were impressions of that part of the country made on me some twenty years ago when I was out there satisfying my wanderlust. I never was any farther north than San Francisco, however, and in any event my remembrances were inevitably spawned from the grit and grime of the streets in my eye, having been confined primarily within the bowels of the so-called Grapevine and Tenderloin districts downtown. The once pastoral scenes your poem evokes are indicative of a sacrificed perspective when it is deemed preferable to enjoy the conveniences of living encased in concrete, rather than to be unduly reminded of what real scenery looks like. Then it's as if there never were a time when the gas station and the fast food restaurant weren't there where the meadow used to be.

Neil Lowe