The wind from the SW prevented an easy crossing to Catalina so I reached up to Cabrillo anchorage, between Pt. Fermin and San Pedro. It is a free anchorage run by the LA port police and its in a shoal next to the busy LA port. I am the only boat in the large anchorage and it feels like I have some solitude but in the background is the throb of the port of Los Angeles…port of the angels. America’s busiest port, the sound seems like the beat of the heart of consumer capitalism. The huge cranes loom in the distance, so large that they have aviation lights atop them. I watched a great red ship with the letters CHINA LINE enter one day loaded to about three containers above deck but when it left two days later it had containers piled up to the top of the exhaust stack, entered full and left empty. There is a small salt marsh there that I enter at high tide and met a Pacific Angel Shark there. It was about four feet long and was wallowing and humping in the mud. She was very friendly and, I think having her young in the shoals. The shark stuck its head out of the water toward my kayak and I scratched it on its soft nose. There were many egrets and wading birds in this small representative of what must have once been a huge wetlands from Palos Verdes to Orange County. The port police kindly gave me permission to anchor free of charge for two weeks so I have stayed and I marched in the anniversary march against the Iraq war in Los Angeles with 51 high school students who were along to earn community service credit in their high school. Chris Venn of San Pedro Neighborhood for Peace organized it and he is a teacher who knows teens and he got a yellow school bus and kept them very busy making signs and banners, both prior to boarding the bus and on the street in Hollywood. The march was heavily dominated by 911 conspiracy people (they had the biggest and most expensive banners..probably paid for by FBI?), LaRouche folks (what IS their thing, anyway?) and chemtrail conspiracy folks. The group I marched with and the Sindicato de Pasajeros were the best peace groups. The best sign was made by one of the teens on the bus, an athletic looking blonde girl about six feet tall who made a sign reading “MAKE AWKWARD SEXUAL ADVANCES, NOT WAR!” Truly priceless!!
Today I read my first poem since adolescence at the Peace Poets reading at Arlington West Santa Monica. It was short and affected by flat affect and reminded me of high school, but here it is:
Warhorse
The young soldier’s face was fresh and fair
but
His horse was grim and scarred by war
They entered a village as a matter of course
Asked at the watering station
About his destination
Replied the soldier “I don’t know, ask the horse!”
Best wishes, Lane
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