IN THE NOVEL CAFE, OCEAN PARK BOULEVARD

IN THE NOVEL CAFÉ,

We were looking at the highway to China,

And the mountains in the sky

That threatened storms.

They passed in the spring winds.

Downtown would soon be dark.

On the boardwalk came the blues

Of an ageing man whose feelings

Were ancestral pain

The ocean will not wash away.

Better to sing than to die.

These things we see by chance,

Like city lights celestial in the rain,

Or something overheard about Idaho,

And snow out of season falls.

Then there is the history of corn...

Reading how the Ancients of America

Found in the wild the saving grace

Of what became corn.

Buttered lightly, it beckons

A continent to consume.

We see Aztecs and ox-wagons,

Empires and pioneers,

Feasting on corn.

A history of the Americas

Is served with salad daily.