The cool darkness of the old back hallway. Carpet feet, light falling in silver.

The green out the side window and the olive bending tenderly over my front window.

In the backyard under the maple spreading each of her red-green hands over me, a red-green net against the hot-oven sky. Stretched out on an Adirondack chair watching the dark-green pool send slivers of sunlight up to the leggy pears.

The dry heat warming my thighs under my book.

Hot tomatoes ripening in the sun, a scent too big for their tiny red cuteness.

As twilight falls, the cooling like you only get in the dry. Some stars coming out. Windows open to the crickets, the fireworks of early August.

Hedges. Gardenias. Camellias. Azaleas. Elms, ashes, oaks. Gold Spanish grasses.

Coyote bushes scraping my bare legs as I cycle at a sprint. Sun falling into my open shoes. The fuggy water smell of the river. A glimpse of the snow-dark Sierras.

Silent craggy oaks casting oak shadows on the gold grass. Coyotes and jackrabbits loping across open spaces. Boulders, mini-cliffs.

Trees from everywhere. A city from a plain from a marsh from a desert.

The window open at night as I sleep. A cool breeze through the greenness of the trees. The contrasts. Gangs of turkeys revolting across the lawns. Tiny sidewalk footpaths between fences.

Little shops where people wear tee shirts, tennis shorts. SUVs down wide straight streets. Low buildings. All the quiet sprawl of the shrugging West.