To Point Reyes Station

Pulling into

Point Reyes Station

I thought to myself

Here where the Fault juts

Seaward is a place

Appositely inclined

To my own frame of mind

While also very much akin

To invisible features   

Of the ground underlying
Together giving rise
To an unshakeable sense  

Of karmic equivalence

Strolling down Main Street

I browsed the bookstore aisles

Hoping for guidance  

From a former resident scribe  

Yet none beckoned to me

From the shelves

Who had scribbled

Any closer than

Kesey north in Humboldt

Or Steinbeck down in Salinas

Leaving the most local of mysteries

Still waiting to be divined

Only a few hundred yards

Beyond the outskirts of town

Unmarked by a formal road sign 

Yet the topography could be read

As clearly as with map in hand
Right there where the fingertip

Of Tomales Bay cut inland

As signaling the occurrence

Of a change most profound

And from that point with eyes closed

I thought to venture further on

At less than snail’s pace

And forever affixed to this spot

Though by dint of the epochal
Migration of rock knowing

I was nonetheless destined
To end up in Portland

A hundred million years hence

Carried along by this very earth’s 

Inevitable heaving
As the Pacific coast itself

Slipped to the rear

Whether I stood on
An island or peninsula

It remained unclear
But gradually grinding north
Transported by an overpowering force
I made my way of necessity
To North America
In contra-position