We don't see the ocean, not ever, but in July and August
when the worst heat seems to rise from the hard clay
of this valley, you could be walking through a fig orchard
when suddenly the wind cools and for a moment
you get a whiff of salt, and in that moment you can almost
believe something is waiting beyond the Pacheco Pass,
something massive, irrational, and so powerful even
the mountains that rise east of here have no word for it.

You probably think I'm nuts saying the mountains
have no word for ocean, but if you live here
you begin to believe they know everything.
They maintain that huge silence we think of as divine,
a silence that grows in autumn when snow falls
slowly between the pines and the wind dies
to less than a whisper and you can barely catch
your breath because you're thrilled and terrified.

You have to remember this isn't your land.
It belongs to no one, like the sea you once lived beside
and thought was yours. Remember the small boats
that bobbed out as the waves rode in, and the men
who carved a living from it only to find themselves
carved down to nothing. Now you say this is home,
so go ahead, worship the mountains as they dissolve in dust,
wait on the wind, catch a scent of salt, call it our life.

-"Our Valley"

Philip Levine

if life is really as short as they say, then why is the night so long?

I think the saddest parts of this story are that first of all, Walmart is being blamed for not having enough security, instead of the customers who trampled employees for being cruel and inhumane, and secondly, that even after the customers were told that an employee was killed, they refused to leave the store, claiming they'd "been in line since yesterday morning". This was not a "foreseeable act", and if it was, what does that say about Americans? I mean, obviously Christmas is not about presents, yet 2,000 Christians will ambush a store with such determined ferocity that a man loses his life, and then refuse to leave because the time they'd invested waiting to get into the store is worth more than the life of a man. Somebody lost their life so that parents could get their children half-priced Wii's and Barbies for the day which celebrates the birth of a man who lost his life to save humans from themselves? This isn't what he intended people to do with their faith.