A Poem a Day to Millennium
 20 September 1999
 

LUCERNE VALLEY

Nine thousand years ago
your playa lakes dried up,
the pinon and juniper trees on your rocky hills
withered away,
and your beach sand became home to
brine shrimp.
In suspended sleep they yet dream,
remembering
when tulie stems sprang up like green grasshoppers,
the day's turquoise blue sky still dawned
friendly and cool,
and ducks chattered nearby in marshy coves,
debating whether newcomer man
might yet become
a good neighbor.

- T. Jackson King
(King's web page)

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