For architectural reasons, the structures of the Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center, seen from the Bailey canyon trail, remind me of California missions, like the San Gabriel Mission, barely visible in the distance through a thin layer of morning fog.

Muted bells of Bailey
Cool dawn whisper
a moment of silence...
    (for the enslaved Chumash Indians who built the San Gabriel Mission with lumber pillaged from the southern canyons of the San Gabriels)

There’s no escaping the urban rumble, the honking of trucks backing up, the many chainsaws, lawn mowers and leaf blowers prettying suburban yards below, the sirens, but as soon as the trail ducks deeper into the canyon, the atmosphere goes quiet, though not silent. Any warm body moving through will be escorted by a cloud of swarming flies, mozzies, and bees pollinating late summer blooms. Only a breeze or extreme temperatures would keep them away, and it’s a perfectly still, warm summer morning. What did the Chumash do about bugs?

Traversing soft white
buzzing buckwheat fields
A bee lands, dies in my coffee

I remember reading that, in the summer, groups of Chumash would migrate to higher altitudes in the range, places like Chilao to hunt and forage. They would thus also avoid the high temperatures of the foothills (and the armies of flying insects?). My return from Mt Wilson, contrastingly, is a long toll road slog in and out of sun-drenched, breezeless, dry chaparral. Still, it doesn’t get any better than this. 

Whiny flies hover
like bloodthirsty drones
Summer trail schadenfreude
   (for the drones)