We walk in the mist:
smudges of humanity
on cold blue sand.
Grey sky and water
squeeze distant ships
to thin black marks
along a vanishing point.
Ahead the monolith
breaks surface–
like a whale stitched
with angry gulls.
Whitecaps pound
the storm-battered rock
as tide-edges rise
threatening shore.
An improvised fire
flickers to no end
on the beach inside
this gathering dark.
(Well, no, I have never forgotten a family trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon in the early ’90s where we stayed at the Hallmark resort by Haystack Rock. A variation of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach” wrote itself without much effort. The above pictures were taken by my daughter during her return to Cannon Beach as part of an Oregon eclipse wonder tour.)