Seeking fish,

snowy egrets stalk the shallows,

white as the far snowy Sierra Nevada summits.

The breakers battering Pacific Valley Bluff

are as white as the comical prize chef's hat of the chili cook-out winner,

worn with pride and good humour.

He is white.

White, one of the race that is fading,

losing the wave,

the white surf wave .

 

Brown for the surfers!

Beautiful brown legs and torsos.

Brown the colour of the workers

reclaiming the land that once was theirs,

now smog-browned,

but still a prize. 

The wave is with them and they will have it.

The future is theirs.

They will have the brown pelicans,

the parched, brown desert and

the arid withered, brown hills,

And, remarkably, they will have Newcastle Brown,

bottled or draught, available everywhere,

a triumph of marketing and – arguably – brewing.

 

What is the prize?

It’s in the green.

Is it the green of the cactus, or the palms

waving by the green road signs

with so many Spanish names?

No, it’s the endless rows of green crops,

mountain-watered

vines, bushes, trees,

green which means money

greenbacks,

Enticing the unwary

the mighty dollar, obsessing the green-eyed envious

as the green, snaring kelp entangles divers.

 

Red the Giant Sequoias, majestic

Senior Citizens of the heights,

Earth's matriarchs

Planet's grandfathers but

Americans would have murdered them

for money

if their red wood was any good.

But they prosper and are truly ‘Old Glory’

Though the front garden flags have pretensions.

Their stripes are as red as my sunburn,

red as the flaming sun off Pismo Beach,

God's barbecue coal.

And red as the STOP sign I missed.

 

Blue the light on the cop car chasing me

It was only a STOP sign – why the siren?

For a happier sound

attend to the cheerful, noisy, blue scrub jay.

Chattering beneath the blue sky.

Blue, too, the sea,

and blue the magnificent blue whales

humanity tried to exterminate.

Thank God we failed.

To see these giants spouting

is a joy and privilege.

 

Black the oil. Guzzled freely on freeways,

Here, it's found around.

The nodding donkeys ploddingly suck it

from the ground,

Black the wet suits we wear,

made from the oil,

and that strange slug, the sea-hare.

Black the bear which didn't attack

as we walked unaware behind its back.

 

Yellow the fire hydrants and the odd Ferrari,

Orange the oranges, and mission roof tiles

in Orange County.

Where gold, precious gold, that made this wealthy land

is recalled now in a street name,

Golden West

 

And finally silver.

To find the passion, chase the silver.

Silver screens on every wall

in every bar, follow every ball.

Silver screens.

Hollywood and computing

Wealth upon wealth

Silver screens making silver.

Follow the silver, find the passion

Find the passion, make some silver.

 

Fish silver is lovelier.

Gone now from Cannery Row.

Gone are the shoals.

The plundered oceans shudder in shock.

Why did it happen?

The Devil has 49% of the shares

in God's country.

 

But the fish that remain,

in their multicoloured glory

They are all His.

I hope the brown people

look after the rainbow fish.