there is no other place that is so much home to me.

always a visitor, uncounted times, never a resident, or I never would have left.
 
I know this place.   how to get there, like an old Greyhound bus.   I know the streets the houses the homes the shops downtown the alleyways the beaches the old rounded grocery store.   Monterey Bay is one intimate face, and to the farther west, the Pacific Ocean wild, undressed.   I have climbed the rocks, walked in the sand, and yes, the cold blue ocean too.   Gulls own the skies except when the brown pelicans soar mere feet above the water below.   regal is the word.   I know where the monarch butterflies gather themselves.   and the eager ground squirrels watching your fingertips.
          sixty years I remember here.

I posted earlier about this event.   now I want to share some of the reality.   some drums atop the old concrete pier, some folks talking why, lantern floats being set loose onto the Lover’s Point ocean cove.   I was there once myself.   now, you too, this much anyway.

I wish you peace.    I wish you love.