“… suddenly the wind cools
and for a moment you get a whiff of salt,
and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond
. . . something massive, irrational,
and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here
have no word for it.”

We don’t see the ocean, not ever,
but in July and August,
when the worst heat seems to rise
from the hard clay of this valley,
you could be walking through a fig orchard,
when suddenly the wind cools
and for a moment you get a whiff of salt,
and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond
the Pacheco Pass, something massive,
irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here
have no word for it.

You probably think I’m nuts saying the mountain
have no word for ocean, but if you live here
you begin to believe they know everything.
They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,
a silence that grows in autumn when the snow falls
slowly between the pines and the wind dies
to less than a whisper, and you can barely
catch your breath because you’re thrilled and terrified.

~ Excerpts from ‘Our Valley’ by Philip Levine (1928-2015)