She sits enthroned by nature, on the coast

Of California, like a reigning queen of villages,

And every other town in every other land

Tries in vain to be as elegant and simple 

All at once the way she does it without trying

To impress or sell herself for short term profit.

Timelessness is Mendocino’s strongest suite,

Her elegant houses no more valued or loved

than new ones  designed for now and later

technologies and economies not developed

yet but sure to come to protect and save

what people who live here want to keep.

It’s the sea’s compromise with wind and cliffs

where a serious Big River calmly but surely

pushes out from primeval forests past beaches

they want to preserve uninterrupted and spoiled

by what passes for progress in other places

where mega-hotels and carnivals are preferred.