I noticed today that they’ve got a block of parking spaces fenced off in front of the grocery store. They do this every year, to make room for their Christmas trees. Buying the family tree from Albertsons – I don’t know. Seems spiritually risky to me. … Well, I guess anything you do with love can’t be wrong.

A few years ago, I sat in the Starbucks in that shopping center, looking out at the phony lighted wreaths on the lampposts, in sight of that stand of trees, and wrote this poem … to someone long lost and gone.

HYMN OF STONES

As I sit and write to you, it’s dark.

I’m in a coffeehouse: reggae, earth tones,

teenagers. Night stands up behind

Rincon Hill like an old man rises

from beside his bed after praying.

I think of your delicate throat. There are

Christmas trees for sale outside

in the parking lot. I should mention

that I love their smell, mingled as it is

with car exhaust and tar. I remember

your face, like fog in a morning orchard;

so gentle and still and forming in my mind

until the trees begin to ring.

A soft hymn of stones

may answer from the shrouded hills,

but we will be asleep by then.