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Title: Mostly California
Date of first publication: 1948
Author: Don Blanding (1894-1957)
Date first posted: Dec. 14, 2021
Date last updated: Dec. 14, 2021
Faded Page eBook #20211223
This eBook was produced by: Mardi Desjardins, Chuck Grief & the
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MOSTLY CALIFORNIA
Don Blanding
VAGABOND’S HOUSE
SONGS OF THE SEVEN SENSES
HULA MOONS
STOWAWAYS IN PARADISE
LET US DREAM
MEMORY ROOM
DRIFTER’S GOLD
THE REST OF THE ROAD
FLORIDAYS
PILOT BAILS OUT
TODAY IS HERE
MOSTLY CALIFORNIA
Illustrated by the Author
BRIEF APRILS by Edythe Hope Genée
Illustrated by Don Blanding
MOSTLY CALIFORNIA
by Don Blanding
Illustrations by the Author
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
New York—1948
Copyright 1948
By DON BLANDING
When North and East and South had fed the flame
Of high adventuring and frantic quest,
My heart returned each time in search of rest
And welcome in this land’s warm kindly smile
Until the light of recognition came....
This friend had been my lover all the while.
RANDOM TREASURE
The tiny gnat with a wee thin voice spoke to Sequoia tree,
“I am the least of living things, would you deign to speak to me?
You must be God... or the brother of God... so old and great and tall.”
Sequoia spoke from its mighty height, “We are only large or small,
Not greater or less in the eyes of God. We are his children, all.
Once I was less than the size of you, a germ of growth in a seed,
Driven to reach for the passing clouds by a silent urgent need.
Now I am tall, as men count tall, yet you with your shining wings
Can mount to the sky above my head for a God’s-eye view of things.
The little Sequoia, ten years old, but oh, so young and green,
Cried to its mother standing near like a silent widowed queen
At the bier of her lord with a muted grief too deep and sad for tears.
At last she spoke in a still dark voice to hush her small one’s fears,
“Weep, Child, weep, for what you have seen. Weep once... then weep no
more.
Death is the life by which we live. The tree on the forest floor
Yielded its place that you might live, and living, touch the sky,
As you and I when our time has come will sway and fall and die.
This is the law, the knowing law, ancient and kind and just;
The seed is given its birth in dust and returns that life to dust.
Death is a pause in the forest day. When you are as old as I
Then you will know as I know now, the answer, the age-old Why.
It is not easy to say “Farewell” to the sun, the stars and the rain.
It is not easy to understand the healing that comes from pain.
You can not know until you have known the test of searing fire.
The jagged wound of the lightning’s kiss, and the scar of its white desire
And you can not know until you have known the strength that is in our
breed
To heal the wounds and build new power to meet a greater need.
But you will know as I know now when your life has been fulfilled
Why kings must fall to the waiting earth and the life-sap must be spilled.
We live through you and the seed of you; that is the law of the tree,
The great must pass so the small may live... as our immortality.
FOR CATHERINE
Whatcha doin’?
I’m drawing a tree.
What kinda tree?
Wait and see.
Don’t wanta wait...
Wanta know now.
It’ll be more fun
If I show you how.
I’ll draw the trunk
And I’ll draw the bough.
I’ll draw the leaves
And the shade below.
There, it is finished.
Now do you know?
Sure, I know...
I can see it plain.
Where old St. Peter guards the gates of Heaven’s vast expanse
The falling stars and meteors with sudden flare and glance
Are cherubs scratching matches on the seat of Peter’s pants.
A QUESTION OF BRAVERY
Son, you say us pioneers was brave. Well, in our way
We was. This may sound funny, what I’m going to say,
But in another light we wasn’t. We’re a breed
That knows our family tree is just a tumble-weed.
We’re movers-onners not stay-putters like the folks
That roots deep in the soil to stay like elms and oaks.
We don’t like routine or the safe and settled ways
That most folks needs to fill their span of living days.
Security and real estate and all those things
Is just like clipping feathers on a wild duck’s wings.
The follow-uppers reap the grain of fields we clear,
But we don’t mind too much. The things that we hold dear
Lies just beyond the hill, and when we cross that hill
Well, there’s another and another one until
We reach the furthest West that we can go.
We slow down with the years, so here we stay. We know
That these stay-putting folks has plenty courage, too,
Doing the dull and needful things there is to do
To build a nation up and make it strong and great.
When us folks gotta go we gotta go. Some wait.
Los Angeles,
Monstrous jig-saw puzzle of a city
Dropped from the stratosphere
To splatter over the landscape
For miles and miles and miles
And miles and miles
And miles.
SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco,
Aristocrat of manner,
Splendid with jewels,
Groomed to the last hair,
The raffish Duchess...
With a stevedore lover.
HOLLYWOOD AND VINE
Literary... musical...
And Very Who’s-whosical.
SHASTA
I ain’t so quick
At ’rithmetic
Cause I got only ten fingers, an’, Lord knows,
They’s usually busy washin’ clothes
Or tendin’
To sewin’ an’ mendin’
Or kneedin’ dough
An’ so
When I got some figgerin’ I wants done
I calls my youngest daughter’s li’l son,
Philly Chris... we calls him that cause he was born
In Phillydelphia on Christmas morn
An’ he’s as bright as any Christmas tree.
So, I says to him, “Come hyeah to me,
Philly Chris,
An’ lissen close to this;
Better bring yo’ paper an’ yo’ pencil, too,
Cause I got some figgerin’ fo’ you to do.
I knows that ’rithmetic
Ain’t no trick
Fo’ you at-all,
Even if you is small.”
He grins an’ skins his eyes at me so bright,
“Granny Cally, does I get a cooky if I does it right?”
I ain’t foolin’ him so slick,
He knows I ain’t no good at ’rithmetic.
So I says to him, “Git that cotton outa yo’ ear
An’ lissen hyeah.
Lots o’ times you hyeah folks say
They’s spendin’ the day...
Spendin’ the day...
So I begins thinkin’ this way;
If every second o’ the day costs a penny
How many
Would it take to buy a minute?
He says, “Granny Cally, they’s just sixty seconds in it
An’ it costs you just sixty cents to buy it.”
So I says, “This one’s harder but you try it...
How much is a hour goin’ to cost yo’ Granny Cally?”
He sho’ is bright cause he don’t dilly-dally,
“Thirty-six dollars... an’ now you’se goin’ to say,
‘How much is a day?’ ”
He figgers an’ figgers, then he sho’ nuff hollers,
“Why, Granny Cally, that’s eight hundred an’ sixty-fo’ dollars.”
An’ I says, “Sonny,
That sho’ is a mint o’ money,
An’ I been spendin’ it like I was a millionaire.
I declare
That half-hour I spent fussin’ over the back fence
With ol’ Waterlily Spence
Warn’t worth no eighteen dollars to me.
Naw, sirree!
Now, is I goin’ to spend them precious dollars o’ my days
In foolish ways
Like bubble-headed gals that paints their toes
An’ buys flashy, sleazy clothes
That busts wide open at the seams
An’ the color runs in streaks an’ streams
An’ the buttons all drap off the first time they’s tubbed
An’ washed an’ scrubbed?
Naw, Suh. Believe me, Sonny,
Granny Cally’s buyin’ somethin’ durable with her money.
AUNT CALLY ON “FREE AN’ EQUAL”
I am greedy for all of life, every phase of it, joy and pain.
Often and often I’ve wished that I had been quintuplets with one chief
brain
Radar-sensitive, gleaning all of the varied passions of varied selves
Paying for heights that one self scales with shadowed depths where
another delves.
One could have been a sybarite, gourmet-eager for spice and sauce,
Savoring life-wine’s suave bouquet, rose of laughter and rue of loss.
One could build on a solid rock, one could follow the wild swan road,
One could dream and one could do and one could suffer ambition’s goad.
I wish that one of my multiple selves had been a boy of the desert world
Reading with wondering awe-filled eyes the ancient script of its life
unfurled
Through bone of fossil and weathered rock, telling of eons lost in time,
Book of granite and page of quartz, word of topaz and phrase of lime
Letter by letter as children learn, opening vistas of vast amaze.
I would have loved the desert trails, star-spiced nights and sun-drenched
days.
The mind of a boy is a plastic thing formed of wonder and curious quest;
I would have had my young mind shaped by the glory and splendor of
Desert West.
The sculptor-wind would have chiseled thoughts as the driven sand
erodes the stone
To shapes fantastic and forms grotesque, gods familiar and gods
unknown.
I would have had for guides and friends “desert rats” to instruct my eyes,
Old prospectors to show the trails to lone lost valleys where treasure lies,
Caves with skeletons, shards and tools of men who followed a mysteried
call
To leave their record in pictographs, smoked and carved on the cliff and
wall.
I would have known that the primitive men who carved their legends in
glyph and rhyme
Were lost blood-brothers who tried, as I, to scrawl our names on the fence
of time.
A boy would dream great valiant dreams of high adventure and ancient
lore,
Mimicking battles and games and zest of the vanished men who had gone
before.
I think with envy of treasure trove that waits for the search of youngster
hearts,
Spanish bullion in rotted chests, Indian relics of pots and darts.
Broken arrowhead, shaft of spear, mocking yellow of fool’s gold glint,
Beryl and tourmaline, garnet, sard, black obsidian, agate, flint.
I would have traced the wagon trails of frontier days and have found great
pride
In a rusted knife or spur or coin, burro’s shoe or branded hide,
A whiskey bottle left by the trail, tinted amethyst by the sun,
Or, treasure of treasures to a boyish heart, the grim notched butt of a
killer’s gun.
I would have learned the desert’s rules, old, inflexible, sternly just...
Heed them and live... that is, perhaps; flout them and blend with the
windblown dust.
I would have learned the desert’s song, coyote’s aria sung at night,
Husky churr of the cactus wren, shriek of hawk in bandit flight,
Castanets of the rattle snake, the brooding dove’s insistent sob,
Kildeer’s thin, shrill piping plaint, a tom-tom’s far hypnotic throb.
Who-whooo—whooo of the great horned owl, the mocking bird’s
rhapsodic thrill,
And over, under and after all... the timeless silence, vast and still.
I would have known the secret life that threads the desert night and day,
Savage, brutal, dog-eat-dog, yet with an overnote, bright and gay.
Lizards gilding their tinted scales with the lacquer-gold of the desert sun,
And the small shy things that venture forth for love and play when the
day is done,
The grim gray cactus armed with spears, holding beauty within its heart
To give in tribute to desert-gods in the time that is marked on its mystic
chart.
I would have danced the devil-dance with the whirlwinds swirling in
maddened speed,
And followed mirage with its luring call, and raced with the raffish
tumble-weed.
I would have prowled in gray ghost-towns, I would have known some
lively ghosts,
I would have eaten the desert food served by some curious varied hosts,
Fiery chili with Mexicans, spiked with peppers like raw barbed wire,
Nameless dishes with Indian friends, mulligans cooked on a hobo fire,
I would have loved this lonely land, every hidden and secret part.
Heigh-ho-hum! One life, one self, is not enough for this greedy heart.
MIGHT OF SILENCE
Where should I go? The sea? Its moody tides, its changing restive waves,
its vast unease
Would stir an answering violence within. Another time I might have need
of these.
Where? To the mountains? No. The snow-capped peaks would offer
challenge to a wearied heart
As yet unready for the starry climb. What sanctuary waited, set apart
From turmoil of the jet-propulsioned age that roared about confusion-
deafened ears?
The desert? Yes. Perhaps I might find there the anodyne for ache of
rancid tears
That burned behind my eyes, too salt to shed, too long restrained. The
desert winds might dry
The stagnant pools of bitter futile grief. The distances might mute the
frantic cry
That tore the tissues of my throat like claws. Perhaps the bright mirage,
that witching wraith,
Might veil the dark regrets that hovered near masking the guiding light of
my sought faith.
I journeyed to the desert in my need. A while the lethargy of numbing
pain.
Dulled the uneasy nerves, stifled the cry. This was not rest, the surcease
sought in vain.
Subtly the desert drums of silence beat a soft monotony against my heart,
Lulling, persuasive, rhythmic as a dance until my sluggish pulses felt the
start
Of freshened blood throughout the deadened veins. The distances,
uncluttered, vast and blue,
Drained all the toxins like a cosmic sponge. My eyes looked out upon the
world with new
Delight. I saw the aged Joshua trees lift supplicating arms into the sky,
And not in vain, for ivory prayers of bloom opened in ecstasy, even as I
Could feel the buds of hope begin to swell, forming and shaping into
future bloom.
My sanctuary was no four-walled cell. It grew into a vast and spacious
room
Muralled with mountains, blue and amethyst, ceilinged with turquoise
studded with white stars.
No door, no key to lock myself within. The virile wind blew down the
rigid bars
That I had placed between the world and me. I knew the freedom of the
realm of God.
I saw frail flowers have their transient hour when winter rains dissolved
the sun-baked clod.
I learned the patience of the desert’s time where eons are but minutes lost
in space.
I saw the latent beauty of the heart that throbbed undaunted in that
desolate place.
I saw the slow persistent Sculptor’s hand shaping resistant rock to
beauty’s forms
Using the wind and sand, the heat and chill, the constant chisels of the
frost and storms.
I drank the healing wine of sunny hours and sipped the silver liqueur of
the moon.
I read the sky’s bright starry heiroglyphs and heard the orchestra that
threads a tune
With subtle overtones through desert years, a rhapsody of silence with the
gongs
Of centuries to mark the rhythmed beat. I heard the fragile gossamer of
songs
That came from feathered throats of shy small birds articulate with
gratitude for life.
I learned to sing my own song once again, an eager song that welcomed
climb and strife.
To test the strength renewed, the armored faith. I heard the crusted granite
barriers burst
To let artesian springs of water flow, not tears but healing waters for my
thirst.
The desert waits as it has waited long, aloof, inviolate and oldly wise,
Offering nothing but withholding naught. The door is open for the
pilgrim’s eyes
To looked within and find what he may find of healing, rich abundance,
empty air,
Taking only what he brings... the seed... to blossom or to wither in
despair.
GUARDS
I am Hollywood. The Movies. The Faceless One with ten thousand faces.
I am all Ages, all Bloods, all Sexes... I am the Three Graces.
“Three!” shrieks Glockbauer, the Producer. “Make it Thirty!”
I am all Beauty... Venus, Eve, Ishtar, Kwanyin and Dirty Gertie.
I am the Great Hermaphrodite... Male, Female and Neuter.
I am Lover and Beloved, Romeo and Juliet, The Sought and the Suitor.
My Silver-Screen Mirror reflects the Spirit, the Flesh and the Devil.
I am Universal Water, seeking... and finding... your level.
I am the Tempting Mouth, the Luscious Curve, the Eloquent Eyebrow.
I speak all tongues, all idioms, the Lowbrow, Nobrow and Highbrow.
I am the Emotional Automat... for your dollar, dime or nickel
I dish out Caviar, Gefultefish, Hamburger... with or without pickle.
I am Virtue in Rags, Sin in Sequins, Love in a Bustle,
Garbo, Gable, Grable, Bergman, Crawford... and Jane Russell.
(change the names with the years... the types are eternal.)
I am What-You-See-In-Me... Love, Sacred, Profane or Infernal.
I am Boy-Meets-Girl, Fata Morgana, Horatio Alger, the Happy Ending.
I am Symbol of Fur-Lined Bathtubs and Prodigal Spending.
I am Prodigal Son, the Fatted Calf, The Golden Calf, Cain and Abel.
Speaking of Calves, I’m more Leg Conscious than a Centipede or a
Table.
I am Music of the Spheres, Ave Maria and the Siren’s Song.
I am the Song of Bernadette... and She Done Him Wrong.
I am Heloise and Abelard, Frankie and Johnnie, Bill and Min,
Broken Blossoms, Birth of a Nation, What Price Glory and Elinor Glynn.
I am Over The Hill To The Poorhouse and Brewster’s Millions,
I am Low-down Hoe-downs, Polkas, Kootches and Court Cotillions,
I am Vicarious Passion for Dreamers and Frustrated Females.
I am Yum-Yum, Pin-Up Girl, Pictured Itch for Sex-Hungry He-males.
I am News Reel, Time Marching On, The Candid and Candied Camera.
I am Life in the Raw, the Great Strip Tease, The Revealer and the
Glamourer.
I think in Capital Letters, Superlatives, Super-Colossals,
I am Mother of Novelties and Reviver of Joe Miller’s Fossils.
I am the Great Weep, Libido, The Belly Laugh, Snicker and Chuckle.
I am the Tragic Buffoon... the ghost of Fatty Arbuckle.
The Chaplin-Who-Was, Mary Pickford’s Curls, Shirley Temple’s
Dimples,
Moron’s Delight, Substitute for Thought, an Adolescent’s Pimples.
I am a Cowboy who doesn’t know which end of a Horse is
Which end of a Horse. I am an Orgy in Five Reels and Courses.
I am the Grand Chameleon, mimicking Life in Technicolor.
Merton of the Movies, Topsy and Eva, Uncle Tom, Lillith and Maud
Muller.
I am Gloria Glamour, Harry Chest, Maurice Musclebound, Cutie Cuticle.
I am the Great Cathartic... Emotional, not Pharmaceutical.
I can be Joan the Woman, Mary the Mother, the Repentant Magdalene,
The Drab, the Indestructible Virgin, Empress, Burlesque Queen,
I am the Vociferous Duck, Krazy Kat, a Slap-Happy Mouse,
I am What Makes Sammy Run, A Genius, a Hero,... a Louse.
I am the Leer, the Burning Glance, the Lips A-Tremble With Passion.
The Gay Nineties, Gone With the Wind... and the Last Screech of
Fashion.
I am a Kick in the Pants, Pie in the Face, Prat Fall, the Amplified Belch.
I speak Chinese, Esquimo, English, American, Brooklynese, Okie and
Welch.
My Featureless Face wears the Grief of Niobe, the Mask of Medusa.
I am the Goal for Youth from the Ultimate Pole to Azusa.
I am the Horror of Dracula, Sweat of Jean Valjean, Blood of a Martyr,
Zaza, Billy the Kid, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Pollyanna, A Tartar.
Aladdin’s Lamp, The Magic Carpet, the Wishing Ring, the Maze of
Mystery.
I record Today, Predict Tomorrow and rewrite the Script of History.
I am Prince Charming, Hamlet as John Barrymore, I am Norma Shearer.
I am What-The-Public-Wants, I am Yourselves, seen in your Docile
Mirror.
I am Truth, Hokum, Trash, Kindly Light. I am What-You-Wish-Me.
Intellectuals Scorn Me, People Adore Me, Columnists Dish Me.
I wear the Masks that You Fashion. Love Me. Damn Me. Flout Me.
I am Hollywood... Fabulous Follywood. What would you do without me?
WITHIN THESE BORDERS
They called him “Avenging Angel, The Flaming Sword that Flies,”
Now he writes vapor slogans,
“Gulp Grog,” or “Grub at Grogan’s”
On California skies,
For the crowd’s indifferent eyes.
DIET RULE TO END ALL DIET RULES
What you don’t stuff in your face Won’t add pounds some other place.
What your appetite indulges Changes curves to bulky bulges.
BUBBLE BATH
California is a woman,
At least so I assume,
Because she loves to scent her flesh
With soft perfume.
When acacia is in flower
Watch and you’ll behold...
The lady takes her bubble-bath
In pollen-gold.
UNWRITTEN LAW
In Carmel-by-the-Sea
It is an unwritten law that no one
Shall have less than one
Dog.
I can’t figure out
Whether the dogs
Grow to resemble the owners
Or vice-versa
But there are
Some remarkable resemblances...
Sometimes you can’t tell
Which is which
Until one of them
Barks.
SUNSET WINES
The start. In the veins there are trumpets and drum-beats that quicken.
Thighs and strong knees thrust in piston-like lifting and bending.
The vision is dizzied by shifting horizons extending
To ominous ramparts looming through storm-clouds that thicken.
The heights bring a weariness, perilous cliffs for the spirit
To scale while the flesh and the sinews turn rebel and laggard.
There are ghosts in the wind-driven mists, phantoms grisly and haggard.
Guarding the shrine of the peak from brash mortals who near it.
Fear creeps like a frost in the blood to make the brain sicken.
Hope lights a countering flame of the heart’s brave expending.
Thunders of silence deafen the ear-drums that hear it.
The summit! The triumph! The awe as the last steps are staggered.
Slowly the soul reaches out to horizons expanded.
Arterial walls know an ache as they alter their spacing
For memory’s brushes to paint a vast mural, retracing
The might of a man’s puny strength, when a challenge commanded.
The descent from the summit is swift, and weary the going.
Exaltation is stilled, the peak diminished with distance.
The body complains as the flesh offers sullen resistance.
The shadows of valleys have quenched the high shrine’s vivid glowing.
But the heart of a man who has conquered a god-peak is branded,
An indelible brand, immune to the years’ slow erasing,
For the call to the summit will trumpet with endless insistence,
And the heart will reclaim its high moment of glorious knowing.
THE DESERT IS NEVER LONELY
The desert is never lonely,
It is filled with so many things;
It brims with a mighty silence
When the blue horizon sings
In a key too deep for hearing
Except by the muted heart,
When the stars are notes of music
On the sky’s vast cosmic chart.
P.S.
Hell isn’t fire nor lack of women,
It’s Creamed Chicken Oceans that we must swim in.
TIA ROSA
Tia Rose (Aunt Rose) is a philosopher of Olvera Street, Los Angeles, who
incidentally sells jumping beans, cactus candy, beads, sombrero ashtrays,
painted porcelain pigs and other souvenirs to tourists.
Beauty is wise....
The peacock’s jewelled eyes
Are more than a gay surprise
For the coy admiring hen.
Why all that grandeur when
Nature, knowing fowls and men
Planted a need in flesh and feather
Greater than mere “which or whether”
For C.C., H.H.J., E.H.G., F.W., N.L., F.G., H.H., D.B., E.B.Y., B.M. and
M.D.
(Maverick, an unbranded animal, formerly claimed by the first one branding it.)
What do I see when I say the name “California”?
First I send my heart in vast spiralled wanderings
On tireless condor-wings
Cruising the sky,
Zenith high,
Speeding through centuries, circling space
To the time-place
When California was young, young,
Unsung,
Unnamed,
Maverick-land, savagely free, unbranded, untamed.
You who are poets, find words for my story, then rhyme them.
Take your hearts to my mountains and bid your hearts climb them.
Write of their grandeur, their challenge, their silence and mystery.
Take amber of words and preserve my turbulent history.
Read the great stars of my destiny shining above me.
Teach my children to know me, to help me, to love me.
Go to my deserts, you who are artists. Portray me.
Paint silence. Find colors and rhythms that you may convey me.
Paint distance, so vast that the soul may learn its aloneness.
Paint wonder. Paint time. Paint life and its godlike unknowness.
Here is haven for homeless. The haven is yours for the taking.
It is haven or Hell... Hell or haven... yours is the making.
You are my children. Be brothers... a family uniting.
Destiny offers her torch... we are fuel for that lighting.
You are my greatness, my triumph, my splendor, my sorrow.
Give me the boon that I ask... a splendid Tomorrow.
YOU’RE WELCOME