Those Amazing Hills: Poem

Fun partly now
to walk through those
dry golden and green California hills.

Sublime, profound,
to remember the past
to imagine oneself
in part of that past.
In those stories:

George and Lennie
walked through these hills
down roads towards an uncertain future.
The Joads saw those
parched places.
They were battled over.
Contested.
Farmed.

Nice to not really be
a part of these hard tales.
Glad they are remembered
though.

Easier, safer
to be part
of something else,
some other tales;
alone in this country,
in those wondrous evocative hills
which remind us
that we can make
decisions.