Initial Point: Mount Diablo

survey:

three range, three townships lines

thirty-six sections, aliquots, lot and block

of wildflowers on the devil’s mountain,

commas mean ‘of the’ and semicolons 

read as ‘and’ no metes and bounds 

live oak, do not pass bikes on blind curves!

elevation 3849 feet... mark boundaries:  

old rocks, young mountain, the grid.

the view! on a clear day see the Sierras 

and more land than anywhere else in the USA.

datum and benchmark going vertical

to rock city picnic. the tower. lighted beacon. 

the prime meridian. the principle baseline. 

at the thicket of the devil is waymark,

right to left, the initial point: Mount Diablo.

N 37° 52.901 W 121° 54.845

10S E 595495 N 4193243

Prime Meridian for Northern California Base Line for Northern California and Nevada