Big Creek, California (Pop 385)

In Big Creek
all the men wear
yellow hardhats
and park their pickups
in the middle of the road
because when they stop,
the whole town stops
except for the occasional
wandering black bear
and the water always rushing
through silver pipes
under sugar pine and manzanita
down granite cliffs
while hawks circle soundlessly
in Sierra updrafts,
water from winter
from two miles high
dropping through mountain plumbing,
humming
through six turbines
attached by wire
to all the lights
in Los Angeles.

7/20/84

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