By Gary R Vickers, Owner
When my grandchildren’s children
Return from an enchanting Big Sur excursion
Freshly imbibed by its stupendous natural beauty
And they cross the half-barreled vertigo expanse
Over Bixby Creek north to the Carmel Highlands
Down the winding narrow gauges of Spindrift Road
Just-round-the-corner… past Ansel Adams’ place
They will be greeted by a timeworn capsule
A Sea-etched Citadel …
And they will feel the love that meticulously hung the hand-hewn timber frame and the strength that fashioned its caressing stones, amidst a contorted crop of Cypress and Storybook homes…
As Maddox was to Jeffers’ Tor House;
On the Tor’s of Carmel Point
Issac was the lead mason at ‘Stonescape’
On the precipitous promontories of Spindrift
For many years he toiled from dawn to dusk giving each stone its purposeful fit
The mastery of his trade worthy of Hiram Abiff
I quite simply,
In the parlance of ancient Freemason’s,
His clumsy Fellowcraft
Yet together we gave rise to these enduring structures that grace the granite sea cliffs of Spindrift
And somewhere within the confines of the stacked grit and sarsen
Countless emotions and unspoken words inevitably flood the observer
As the ethos and aura of this place seeps forth from the mortar seams
And to the fore of this sturdy fortress
Constant toil… the nemesis in disguise
An army of waves violently and abruptly end their lives
Smashing against resolute vertical sheer walls
While…. safely perched above the parapet
Standing in as Issac’s unifying bohemian signature
Chimneys parade as rudimentary battlements
Their alternating crenellations and jagged spired merlons
Encircling each other like medieval soldiers
Emulating the King’s crown
Or the ruins of sea torn castles forlorn
And if one seeks peace from the frenetic waters persistent reverb
Enter … the inner sanctum
Where thick walls dissipate decibels of shore and Sea
Into the realm of calm
And the scratch of a wooden match
Across the ochre skin of the lichened hearth
Gives life to fire
Embracing the dry tender kindling with a vengeance
Its brilliant effulgence casting a sepias glow
Across the basaltic back of the outsized sooted fire-box
Framed by the cap of a massive mantle
Completely worthy of Gideon’s calcified Iguanodon slab
And selected to honor the girth and dimension of its ten-ton hearthstone
© Gary R Vickers