I think the best view is toward the hills. Especially a little while after sunset on a summer evening, when the sky turns an electric blue, the horizon undulates in silhouette, and a star glints like light through a pinhole. But also anytime I happen to look up from the northwest corner while doing some chore like mowing the lawn or digging the mud for spring bulbs and notice again that clearing on the hillside, way past the freeway, above the rooftops and telephone wires of Glenview, and just below Grizzly Peak Road. It's only a square of green. Or yellow or brown, depending on the season, surrounded by a dark mass of Coast Live Oak or Monterey Pine. But the moment I look up and see it again I have a sensation of melting behind my eyes as if my optic nerve was thawing. My shoulders drop and I stand there staring, in a rush of contentment. As if the vision of the patch of earth were chemically altering me. Is this the poet's drug? A vision stored in the brain like a secret vial of elixir. A craving for fulfillment that only the image of a patch of earth can relieve. The need for pleasure is strong and all our senses cooperate with desire.