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      May 22, 2023ImprovidentVeronica Kornberg

      That dream, a small cottage
      with windows facing the Pacific and
      —wait for it—
      priced within reason.
      Of course
      there were none.
      So for twenty-five years we simply drove
      the twisty mountain route
      through a green welter of redwoods
      to bottom out along the coast
      among scattershot barns
      and rusty propane tanks, happy
      to end up at the state beach,
      shield our ham and cheese
      from sand-laced wind.
      Eventually our fruitless quest was more
      idle banter than actual search
      though we still nosed
      into abandoned shacks
      and tire track lanes dead-ending
      in junk heaps. What more could we want?
      One foggy day we spied
      a peeled and faded sign set back
      among overgrown cypress,
      a footpath through a dense thicket
      of dead pines that led to a cliff,
      and perched on its crumbling edge—
      a tiny house, crusted with orange lichen,
      brown algae and termite wings, the redwood
      water tank staves bowed and bleeding water.
      Within weeks our 401(k) was gutted,
      we were out chopping dead trees
      and fiddling with a pump bladder,
      fielding chiropractors, pricing
      used tractors. We chimed the names
      of everything around us—
      wrack line, blackberry, wentletrap,
      wooly sea daisy and gumboot chiton.
      We took it all on faith, as is.
      Below us, the violent sea
      broke its beautiful teeth on the rocks.

      from #79 - Irish Poets

      Veronica Kornberg

      “Perhaps this poem reflects my inner Flopsy Bunny, about whom Beatrix Potter said, ‘They had a large family, and they were very improvident and cheerful.’”