Big Sur; photo by Don Gale
Imaginary Surfing at Big Sur
for Michael Murphy at 80
By Larry Wilson
This is the real world
Same as that old world
You imagine you live in
More realistically
The cliffs with their real
Esalen hot sulfur water bursting
Out where they did the books
On an abacus
Doesn’t make the books less real.
A place where no one
Will capture the flag
Where they take their dogmas lightly
Where unattended children
Will be given an espresso
And a small, growing dog.
A genius invention
By an Indian tribe
It later turned out
Didn’t exist.
Everyone up here having
A wonderful time
Belowdecks they are killing
One another.
I can’t be in the baths
In the hot water
Without leaning my head to look
Down the cliffs to the ocean
And its unridden waves
Big, loud, ridden with kelp.
The practice of meditation
Is to bring us back into the world
Where the divine is imminent.
Looking out at the sets
I need never put on my suit
Never figure out how
To get a board there
No beach and no path to it
No slip, no boats, no docks
Big Sur surfing
Entirely in my mind
Never missing a wave
No wave ever closing out
Not going on the rocks
When you have a mystical experience
What to do with it?
Find some place
To plunge back in.
Copyright 2013 Larry Wilson
Photo by Jon Sullivan
Larry Wilson is Public Editor at the Pasadena Star-News, as well Artistic Director of LitFest Pasadena, which will be held on Saturday, May 11, 2013. He is currently completing “Twenty Surf Poems and a Song of Despair,” a chapbook of poetry about surfing in California and Kauai.
Lovely.