Check out these gorgeous aerial photographs of the Delta and mid-Central Valley taken by one Adrian Mendoza. The Great California Delta, as the Delta Vision plan would like us to think of it, is really one of those parts of the state that is so immense it really needs to be seen from a great distance to be taken in in all of its scale and reach; yet, it is also so large that we may live our entire lives on, around and in it without even seeing the riches were treading on with our own feet. How Californian.
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Now, a poem:
"Photo of the Delta King"
In the summertime the long low hulls of the riverboats
slide through the cotton fields
of the American River.
Piled bales cover the wide decks and shimmer in the sun-hazed air
as six men straddle and mount
the stifling crop yield;
They are Irish Kearneyites in rolled sleeves and facial hair,
somehow roughing valley, inland heat, their
white faces under broad, dark hats.
Seven Chinese farmers gather high-up on the river bend;
and two in the water raise their cotton high
between commerce and their land.
All look squinting through the photograph, though
the sun will bleach-out the Delta King and
time run through their livelihood.
(Note: This is neither the Delta King nor its sister ship, the Delta Queen; however, it is somewhere in the Delta.)
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At some point I need to tell you all about Zwart, but that's a Delta story for another time.
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