My favored trailhead to Rubio Canyon turns out to be a private driveway, or so it says on the laminated sign posted on the gate next to the old disheveled miner’s cabin. I respect the sign, albeit with a question mark; I can’t help thinking about the much publicized and ongoing battle over public beach access. No ‘right to roam’ here! Given the significant increase in gun sales since the pandemic started, you never know what kind of neighbor you might run into, armed or unarmed, trigger-happy or cool and relaxed. Given the level of anger and fear in the country these days, the odds are in favor of the latter. For now the other accesses to Rubio will do just fine. Just please don’t tear down that cabin.

Under the cedar
where a tennis court once sat
next to a tree stump
that favors Rodin's Balzac
coffee and P, B & J
Yellow maple leaves
dried white sage rusty buckwheat
long late fall shadows
dead timber snaps under my steps
a landscape waiting for rain

Much needed return to this routine that is anything but. Walking and looking. Paying attention. The world is beautiful, no, the world is. I ‘is’.