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Anastomosis

Lyricist: Ed McGee

Vocalist: Ed McGee

California.
I believe it's magical
and I don't care what the people say.
The earthquakes and attitudes
don't shake from me
my convictions.
And I would never blame
a place
or hold it accountable
for its inhabitants
or trespassers --
aren't they one and the same
to a place anyway? --
nor would I blame it
for its nature
or overlook its gifts
for its threats.
Call me a fool,
but I like the way my skin looks
tan
and thank the same sun
that wields cancer on every shaft.

So I see this
California
like any other sweet risk,
and why hide in the plains,
where the crops dry up
or houses float away in floods --
remember
the Missouri met the Mississippi
20 miles north of normal
one year?
Such wild rains,
such unnatural nature
to stretch anastomosis
so severly.

Why hide up north,
where the cold
slows and stops the frail
each March?
Freezing rain cuts off
power and transportation
and social functions
till a town's reduced
to huddled, little groups
waiting nervously around
dwindling fires.

Why hide in the city
with its conveniences --
which are what, convenience stores? --
when the crowds and confusion
will thicken your hide
and your blood
till it clogs somewhere bad,
another anastomotic assault,
why hide there?

Well, there are reasons,
always reasons for risk,
so why look down on
California
(other than to thusly suck
poison from the bite
of jealousy,
admit it --
the mountains, the beaches,
the weather...);

it's like the veins
in a leaf's middle
saying those on the edge
risk crackling off altogether,
as if those middle ones
weren't about to be chewed up
by a bug
or pierced by a heavy
dew drop.

All these veins and tributaries
and blood lines are connected;
and each new wrinkle
in my pale skin is proof --
anastomotic systems shift.

So, though my geology teacher
warned me,
I enter San Francisco
with no less confidence than ever,
and with certainly no less will
to abide,
may the earth quake,
may the people flake,
may the terminal sun devour me
like a surfer
when the wave breaks.

		

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