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An ode to California’s outdoors
The enchanting forests of Big Sur to the Joshua tree in the Mojave; the sea caves in Channel Island to the serene beauty of Half Moon Bay; the peaks of Mt Shasta that hide an active volcano, to the majestic snow-covered peaks of the tallest mountain range of the U.S., Mt Whitney. In his second outing as a poet, Bay Area adventurer and writer Lalit Kumar takes us on a thrilling, lyrical ride through the choicest outdoors that the Golden State has to offer. Yosemite of my heart – Poems of adventure in California, was released at the San Francisco Writers Conference on February 17 this year, and is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and local Bay Area bookstores.
With a foreword from no less than the Poet Laureate Emeritus of Marin County, Terry Lucas, Lalit Kumar’s 40 poems, which pay homage to everything from Santa Barbara to San Francisco, can capture the interest of any poetry lover, Californian or not. Lalit brings his adventures of hiking, motorcycling, kayaking, and horse-riding, coupled with his love for California, into a gushing stream of poetic compositions.
Observing a lived experience
Along with a testimony to California’s natural beauty, is the poet’s observations of its people and cultures. At once, a witness and the one who experiences, Lalit’s poems are personal yet universal. In these poems, you will experience the poet’s initial trepidation as he moves to California for the first time. Soon, however, the poet falls in love with the Golden State, reveling in its myriad experiences.
While embracing the state, the people, and the culture, the poet, who is at times philosophical and others reveling in the present, never fails to hold your interest with his verses. In one of my favorite poems, Time is a False Measure, the poet writes:
“Time is a false measure,
Everyone has their own journey
Does it really matter,
Who arrives first, or who reaches last?”
Yosemite of my heart…
Lalit begins this poetic journey with his titular ode to Yosemite. As the anthology’s preface notes, “Yosemite to him conveys the attributes of resiliency, persistence and staying strong despite the challenging circumstances which are crucial to living a rich life.” This sentiment is beautifully reflected in one of his verses:
“Wild Yosemite
Of solid granite walls,
Standing steady to the passing millennia –
Singe me with adventurous ardor!”
He ends this beautiful poem in a Robert Frost style, beautifully combining practical life with philosophy:
“O, for the distance I traveled,
Traversed miles and lengths and breadths
Yosemite in dawns and dusks.
Though I wonder of its splendor
Yet unseen, horizon unexplored
Its vistas tattooed on my naked eyes
Its sound abuzz in my listening ears”
A story of myriad human experiences
This anthology, with some short and some longer poems, reflects various moods of the vast human experience. In the poem, Coming back to Big Sur, Lalit captures the heart of every poet who dwells in every moment seen, felt, and experienced: “This time, I am in no hurry to return home, I come to see the inlands’ redwoods, conifers, sycamore…”
Resilience shines strong in the poem, Alone in San Francisco, when he says, “I am not so lonely, after all…the ocean water-I feared it may drown me. Instead, it taught me how to swim, Along with the tide.”
The lifeblood of art and culture that pulsates through San Francisco is captured in the upbeat poem, Litquake-October 2022:
“The city, a poem
Waiting for the poet to sing its lore…
Living, breathing, pulsating with character…
San Francisco lives in you when you breathe in its air”
More to come!
Every poem in this anthology is worth mulling over. So I leave with the poet’s words of promise of more vibrant poetry to come, in Sailing in Oakland Estuary:
“We set sail on our course-
Alive to the adventures that lie ahead”
