Neal Whitman
Pacific Grove, California, USA

The Haunted Ear Creates a New Tune

December 28, 2012. I'm giving my last tour of poet Robinson Jeffers Tor House in Carmel. Time for a sabbatical after seven years. The poet's wife, Una, was known for her homemade wine she named for the color of the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland. So I taped the word, Cairngorm, onto the label of a bottle of a local dessert wine and presented it as a surprise for today's tour guests. A dram served in Una's 1920s ceramic cups produced in Perth. As we leave the hall and move onto the tor, we hear a sharp "chip" followed by a "trill."

a Townsend's warbler
perches on my hand . . . almost
sea mist distilled