Quit Moaning

It’s a strange place to have landed,
This wind and light, this no place.

Clouds hang a thin scrim again
On the long mountain to the north,

Silhouette of dark blue-grey and old snow
Above the tiled-roof rows and rows,

Beauty without what we call character,
Precious little history, but people in plenty,

Plentiful absences rarely outdoors.
Indoors, windows carve rhomboids

Of gliding distinctions over bare floors.
Sprinkler-jeweled lawns in ochre boxes

Glow between rotating shadows, the pines,
The shade trees fully leafed by mid-spring,

The few aspirational palms asserting winter
Never really comes here, although it can,

Once in a while, and when it does, another
Palm dies. One was cut down a week ago.

One had its frostbitten fronds excised.
The tallest one on this street has survived.

Lizards run up the false-stucco walls,
Lizards more common here than mice,

As the cat can testify. Today a fresh crop
Of yellow dandelions on the renter’s lawn.

Wind chimes and birdsongs when the wind
Sinks, but not at night, when it sinks harder,

Falling down the sides of the long mountain,
Gust after gust, wind-slides, migratory

Rushes sending pinecones down, drumming
On newish roofs weakened and moaning.