Mulholland Highway and the Sea of Fire

The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
To steal away from anarchy
To pacify my mind

The city sirens come undone
Before the ocean spray
Then down the hill to U. S. 1
And thus begins the day

The Pier receding to the South
Will Rogers to the North
Topanga is the turn we seek
As we are going forth

The starkness of the hills and pines
The rivulet below
As Westward the Pacific shines
Beneath the morning glow

The twists and turns I still recall
Though roads are better now
No unpaved sections left at all
Nor farmland for a cow

No Austin Mini Union Jack
The landmarks too have changed
And I so lost since coming back
I almost feel deranged

The Health Food Store with hitching post
The horses canter past
The countryside I love the most
And visit now at last

But on Mulholland Highway there
Surprises lie in wait
There’s razor wire on the fence
And horses at the gate

As giant dishes aiming deep
Into a mountain wall
So Orwell’s promise do we keep
Applying it to all

But I remember still the day
The hill was turned to fire
The way to turn had burned away
The sky was black with ire

And in a wide spot in the road
In reverence did we stand
A fox, a hare, my dog and I
All watched the burning land

Can nothing make us feel as small
As fire pure and cruel?
To know it as a cunning foe -
To know we’re naught but fuel

But through the smoke a fire truck
Led down on Kanan Dume
Toward the cleaner seaward air
Away from certain doom

And all at once the trial was o'er
For we had reached the sea
As once Carrillo had before
And now my dog and me

We pass the house of river stone
Moonshadow’s Restaurant
And even Tidepool Gallery
For years my favorite haunt

And back to Santa Monica
On PCH we drive
Admiring still the beauty
Yet more thankful we’re alive

The winding drive along the sea
I took so many times
To draw away from anarchy
To pacify my mind

22 January 2001

Growing up in L.A. I fell in love with Topanga Canyon and the Malibu coastline early on, and once I got my own car, I had a regular circuit that I drove, usually a couple of days a week, that was my much-needed respite from the daily grind.

Driving in the canyons, the radio didn't work, so I took to listening to tapes as I drove, which resulted in my getting caught in not one, but two brush fires, as I never heard the news reports; first in Topanga, along Old Topanga Canyon Road, and the following year in Malibu.

There is nothing that quite compares with taking a lovely drive in the country, only to round a bend in the road and find yourself facing a wall of advancing flames. It is a breathtaking sight, in more ways than one, as the flames use up the available oxygen leaving you gasping.

Fortunately my grandfather was a safety engineer, and had taught my sisters and me what to do in case we found ourselves faced with fire, so I remained calm, and obviously lived to tell the tale.

My photos of the area are packed away at the moment, but in searching for suitable images, I was gladdened to see that Topanga Canyon Road was recently named a California Scenic Highway, and the only thing I wonder about is what took them so blessed long.

http://www.malibutimes.com/news/article_7c478292-b43e-11e7-8019-07a32dc36b08.html

I was terribly saddened, though, to learn that my beloved cougars, not to mention a host of other wildlife, particularly predators, are being systematically wiped out by a combination of traffic deaths, illegal hunting and rat poison, the latter primarily by eating other animals that carried the poison.

In most populations of predators, as many as eighty to ninety percent of animals - and in some cases one hundred percent - have been exposed to rat poisons. Many animals have been exposed to many different poisons, multiple times, which accumulate in the body, and cause a long, lingering, and very painful death. This has to stop.

My sincere respect and thanks go out to the City of Malibu and https://poisonfreemalibu.org/#animals, among many others, for working diligently to ban these poisons from store shelves throughout the Santa Monica Mountains; and to educate people about nontoxic methods of rodent control, as well as the many hazards of using such poisons, including the accidental deaths of over 10,000 children and 50,000 pet dogs each year.

I have personally lost two well-beloved cats in the past two years, both of which I suspect ate rodents that had ingested poison, so this is very personal for me. I use no poisons on my place, but we disposed of a lot that the previous owners had left behind when we moved here, and it is quite possible that, on 16.5 acres, we may have missed some. Not to mention that we have neighbors who are not as diligent about living a nontoxic life as am I.

This is the wild Los Angeles that the tourists know nothing about, and rarely see, unless they are lucky enough to know a native to shows them around the areas really worth seeing. I would far rather hang out on the hiking trails than on Hollywood Boulevard.

The images in this piece are from Pixabay, which are royalty free, using Creative Commons licensing.

The first image shows the lovely crescent of Santa Monica Bay, looking north toward Malibu, and the second shows the rocks at Leo Carrillo State Beach, which is typically where I left the canyons and made my way back to the sea, before turning south and heading home. The final image is of a hiking trail and spiral near Castro Crest, in Malibu.