MENDOCINO COUNTY AND TRINITY COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

Besides where I live, two of my favorite places on the earth are where the Gualala River meets the Pacific Ocean at the southwestern corner of Mendocino County and the area in the vicinity of Weaverville in Trinity County.

And from a favorite song by Kate McGarrigle, TALK TO ME OF MENDOCINO:

. . . Talk to me of Mendocino
Closing my eyes I hear the sea . . .

. . . And it's on to South Bend, Indiana
Flat out on the western plain
Rise up over the Rockies
And down on into California
Out to where but the rocks again
And let the sun set on the ocean
I will watch it from the shore
Let the sun rise over the redwoods
I'll rise with it till I rise no more . . .

Where the Gualala River Meets the Pacific Ocean at the Southwest Corner of Mendocino County, California

Calendar Series: 30th Month / River Dreaming of the Ocean and Sky (1988)

Here I combined images from a solo road trip during which I visited my parents and sister in Northern California in the spring of 1987. This combination of landscape elements exists only in my mind but depicts a place I have visited often. I remember learning as a child that all rivers were heading to the ocean and that at the ocean the water somehow rose into the sky to form clouds which rained into the rivers. 

A few years ago, in the fall, I was sitting alone beside Nooksack Falls in the North Cascade Mountains and remembered about that cycle and began to write the following poem: 

FALL 2002 POEM 

I carried myself to the mountains 

Though the ocean wasn’t there 

I carried the ocean to the mountains 

Though the ocean wasn’t there 

I carried God to the mountains 

Though God wasn’t there 

God carried me to the mountains 

Though I wasn’t there 

God carried God to God 

Though God wasn’t there