In for a denarii, in for a dollar in Pomes and Epigrams

In California, nobody has their hooks in
beneath the palimpsest, the blimp of human endeavour.
Beneath, the teddy bear cholla, the hard pan,
the burning forest and the roaring sea.
The salt singers too, though to run, across
the desert night, footfalls so infrequent they might be
mistaken for flight. I wish my own hooks dangled so low,
so as to drag me to a standstill. But still, I whakapapa
to the leavers, the draft dodgers, the hopeful farmers and
bored shepherdesses, the ones cast off the blimp from time to time,
who had to scramble for a ladder in a strange land, whether
below was conifers, scrub, prairie, or housing estate.
Did they tarry as I do, beneath the shadow of that
airship of progress, trying to learn the names of things?