Before Los Angeles Poem by Sonny Rainshine

Before, before, what did it look like before?
Before Los Angeles and the loss of angels
and lost angels.

There must have been a time
when the coconut palms grew random
and leaned in tandem with the tide,
with the sea sighing psalms
and the saline air was pure.

What was it like before asphalt
and concrete covered the soft earth
like rubble, like a sheet of pumice.

Listen. Is that the jangle of bells
on the ankles of tribal dancers,
the pulse of primitive percussion.

Now only the imagination can image a nation,
gently verdant and meadow-lit,
and conjure up what was there before
Los Angeles.