In California Poem by Donald Alfred Davie

Chemicals ripen the citrus;
There are rattlesnakes in the mountains,

And on the shoreline

Hygiene, inhuman caution.



Beef in cellophane

Tall as giraffes,

The orange-rancher's daughters

Crop their own groves, mistrustful.



Perpetual summer seems

Precarious on the littoral. We drive

Inland to prove

The risk we sense. At once



Winter claps-to like a shutter

High over the Ojai valley, and discloses

A double crisis,

Winter and Drought.



Ranges on mountain-ranges,

Empty, unwatered, crumbling,

Hot colours come at the eye.

It is too cold



For picnics at the trestle-tables. Claypit

Yellow burns on the distance.

The phantom walks

Everywhere, of intolerable heat.



At Ventucopa, elevation

Two-eight-nine-six, the water hydrant frozen,

Deserted or broken settlements,

Gasoline stations closed and boarded.



By nightfall, to the snows;

And over the mile on tilted

Mile of the mountain park

The bright cars hazarded.