Where Eternity Collides

Born of wind and current
half a world of fetch away,
the restless water
piles mote on molecule.

Energy unknown
builds secret, patient swells
that nudge an ocean
to a distant shore.

Waning depths
craft translucent tubes
of steel and gray,
turquoise and jade.

Football-pitch lengths
curl and collapse,
crash onto themselves
in violent concussion.

Ranks of roiling froth
tumble and seethe;
surge forward
as if by command.

A full hemisphere of energy
loses its memory,
exhausts its will;
decays and fritters to vapid suds.

Inching up the beach,
furtively wetting the flat sand,
an ocean stops to kiss the continent
in feeble pecks, and recedes.

Tiny plovers and their sandpiper overlords
skitter in respiring wave-wash;
pause for an instant
poking well-packed sand.

Expectant beaks loosen it;
armored morsels
exposed then devoured;
the weakest predators robbed of their catch.

Behind, salt-grass anchored dunes
shelter forb and shrub;
beyond, an ephemeral basin,
its ponds teeming with stranded life.

Deep in the inglenook buffer,
garrison of spent ocean debris,
creatures shy and nocturnal
dig and hunt in the soggy fen.

Further still, serpentine ridges
dressed in sequoia and heath
shelter hidden vales
and frame a powder-blue sky;

Or fade into misty gossamer profile,
or are cropped by a helmet of marine cloud,
or vanish completely in summer fog
like the lost coast that it is.

We carve out a perch
in the soft sand
beside a driftwood log;
watch the sea come and go.

Fall under the spell
of sight and sound,
smell and texture,
wind and chill.

We walk the forgiving beach,
collect shells of mussel and clam,
caress palm of sea and kelp of bull,
save dollars of sand and prod see-through jello-fish

French curves of polished bedrock
cradle fleeting starfish puddles;
nourish edgy crab and gentle anemone
in short-lived pools of saltwater.

Log and twig scraps of forest
litter the beach:
worn roots of redwood,
arms of madrone.

The roots of Earth
rest crushed and pulverized,
polished over eons
to grains of sand in mind-numbing zillions.

Continental grit to untold depths
cushions each footfall;
briny water pacific and ancient
wets our feet.

We walk in silence
at the edge of a continent
beside the greatest
ocean on Earth

Wondering that this water
has met this land at this juncture;
right here, not just right now,
but nearly forever.

A living, thinking being
contemplates where eternity collides.
It is here.
And it is privilege beyond reckoning.