there’s always a reason

it’s not always the little rusted spring
that slipped off the governor
on the mower I borrowed

A warm winter’s bank

I sit reading Snyder
on a cedar log skateboard

there’s a wattle tree
next to the river

I stand and go to it
to touch it’s yellow existence

and while i’m still stunned by it
being here in california

a man walking his dog asks
about the log skateboard

and I ask him about the wattle

he’s a landscaper
and doesn’t know the wattle’s name here

but knows there are very few
I tell him aboriginal tribes

favour the timber
for making boomerangs

and he asks again
about the cedar log

I made into a skateboard.