by Jahan Khalighi, Lawrence Halprin’s grandson
December 20, 2009
Ode to Abba
I stand on the fertile edge
Where the city meets the forest
Singing into a surviving creek bed
Rushing water carrying each note
Towards where tears go to give birth
This same creek bed where grandfather
Us to come to sit
And carefully craft his sketches in black notebooks
The tip of his pen articulating the graceful
Gesture of a leaning tree branch
The peeling skin of red madrone
I swear he could choreograph
The dance of a falling oak leaf
Or draw inspiration from deep within a stone
His love for nature
Gently folded into journals
Stacked high as mythology
Love letters to California Coastlines
Inscribed on paper plates
U could almost taste
The salt, the entangled kelp, the devotion
His bare hands wrapped around
Pencils and pens and paintbrushes
Think of an old wise calligrapher mimicking
The wings of a great blue heron in flight
Think of a child playing connect the dots with stars
On a dark winters night
Attempting to discover new constellations
I know his love for life was a constant exploration
As his dedication was to sowing heritage seeds
Into the cracks of city sidewalks
Grandfather who lived with creative ferocity
Whose love of democracy
Was cultivated in the orange fields of Jerusalem Watered by the words of FDR
And sprouted fourth every time
He argued with you about politics
Grandfather who gracefully transplanted
High mountain waterfalls
Into the groaning bowels and gnashing teeth
Of modern cities
Delivering healing water songs
Into the neurotic bustle of urban sprawl
Grandfather who I will always remember as a redwood tree
Full of sap, full of the potential for fire, standing confident on deep roots Grandfather, who always wore the earth’s precious stones
Around his neck instead of ties
Who when I cried for the first and only time
In front of him at age 24
He responded by saying in a small raspy voice
Under his one black eye patch
Well, you must be doing something right
Grandfather whose visions were bigger than time
Whose dreams are folded into carefully stacked sketchbooks
We can now enjoy and ponder
I thank you for planting your passions
In the fertile soil
Of where our imaginations now wander.