California at August Rain
by Peter Menkin

August rain -- summer
relieved --
cools the months.

Against the larger
sky, below walking
the path alone: common stranger afoot.

California scene,
vision existential, transitory.

Many roads cross the land,
hear the sound of the long highway
as the travelers go north: The light rain
waters with relief stark realities finite.

A mortal vision at the light
Of end of day, sighted
before the season changes.
This scene told anew, loneliness,

California climate norm.
Come the time of year
punctuated weather portents
Of the people going. Restless
And on the move.






Existential poem by the aspiring poet Peter Menkin, workshopped on Academy of American Poets site (Poets.org) in 2008, written around 2000. Read by the poet for Archive.org, the poet says of the poem on the workshop site:

"The work is part of a series of "painter" poems that paint a picture. This one made in the summer of a look down the highway where I saw about midpoint in the California daylight a man walking. I had this feeling of loneliness, of a shiftlessness with the cars traveling up the road and the time of day, the man small and alone. Existential is a very good description of the statement I intended."