Rise up, rise up,
we look unto the hills, from whence come our salvation. Powerful gasoline, a clean windshield, a shoeshine, and redwoods-hard-up-against-chaparral help.
And music, always music, maybe Mahler maybe Mark mayhem and mild -- birds, the rustle of leaves, an occasional vehicle -- sounds rising from the riparian depths to the high oak savannas.
(one hopes, however, for the absence of certain strains, warned in the mossy slopes,
of cause and response, call and effect).
Naturally Napa for this ninth and final official day of spring break, in a symmetry of knarled limbs
and a symphony of elfin overhangs;
a verdant Vermontian, Verdian tunnel --
Stravinsky sinuously soaring to the sky.
Out of the canyon, heading back down south toward Orchard Road, there's Mt. George again,
across a sea of vineyards, and
looking back to the east side canyon checkerboard of vegetation,
even a few digger pines.
Back in the car, we cruise up canyon again and down into Oakville again, south Route 29 again,
dining at Mustards, across from a mansion in the Yountville Hills, ordering beer (of all things)
chez Budweiser Fairfield (of all places), which we pass on the way back, the wind so severe that even the horizon, atilt, is moving up.
Shadows are moving up, too, on the Fairfield Pyramids and
Poverty
Hills,
and the North Lagoon Mountains near Vacaville,
where sycamores,
palms and tulip trees glow for an instant, then it's night once more.
Record instrumental version of Vocal Sonatina No. 2 ("Vatsyayama"): III. "On the Means of Attracting Others to Oneself"
All the rest is silence. So far.
