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The peace and quiet,
of sweet retreat,
costs a pretty penny,
know those who buy it.
I used to live next door to the Pacific Ocean,
she's a tranquil sea with moody tides.
Lullabies of foam white noise,
swirled in predictable motion.
Humbly not in a castle or large house surrounded
by sand and fog, but a boxy cubby with holes,
for the salty air to settle in,
knuckled undertow and pounded out.
The street grime, all the passers by,
dog walkers, perverted gawkers
linger in the marine air- over there where
pteradactyles in vees fly high.
Now, dwelling in the neighborhood,
the freeway hum, and soft suburban strum,
gives the beat of the civil street-
moving was good for us.
But a new boisterous big band
plays this bouncing barrio cacophony
from squeals to words next door, grows the baby-
each side stoic fences watch.
Hidden outside in backyard nooks,
under the bamboo pergola, behind the garage,
the short STOP sign was here when we moved,
perched in peace where no one looks.
The train blares through the solitude,
left on time, right on schedule,
a siren wails in urgence, whoop-whoop the cop
car cheers in calm pursuit.
Busy builders compose machines,
climbing roller-coaster, screaming gears,
out front a concert speaker rolls by,
dimmed by security screens.
Chalkboard scraped shrillness,
rings, beeps, tweets, buzzers,
crunching, growling, laughing, crying,
alert to dying in all this blissful stillness.
My volume button broke,
listening to folk voices of vagrancy,
echo emptily, ringing in my head,
"No one's home," I said.
Image by By Ford Madox Brown illustrating a scene from Shakespeare's King Lear, "Lear and Cordelia", (1849-54) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.
