It Has It All
Stores on a wharf, t-shirts, hats,
south facing beach, east-west mountain range
(only two in the continent).
Near the marina,
silver fish flip.
In, out, out of the water, surface:
further out
kelp beds are rainforests for
humpbacks, big blue whales, grey whales,
are filtering sea bottom detritus for ghost shrimp, amphipods.
Dolphins
in front of the bow and the spectra from the wake
through, up into the air
just like Flipper.
Further out
oil platforms
pump for people building on the beach,
horse riding on the beach,
handgliding,
parasailing.
Littoral,
saline, current parallel to coastline,
Mission Creek Estuary:
diving fishes: cormorants, grebes, loons, mergansers, kingfishers;
wading fishers: herons, egrets;
fishes: smelt, sculpin, other bait fish;
birds: coots, terns, pelicans;
probing shorebirds: whimbrel, godwit, willet, sandpiper, sanderling,
stilt, plover, avocet;
gulls;
longjaw mudsucker is a fish; mullet, sticklebeck.
Enteromorpha mats: algae.
Not a port.
Up State Street,
train,
winery,
books,
galleries / art museum,
zoo,
university.
Full moon, Venus next to it.
Mountains, ranches,
money can buy.
A hush.
Ceaseless sea
can quell -- all --
hush --
Tatterdemalion
Between worry
and fetish
lies a
wealth -- syllables,
rhyme minefield,
favorite and frequently touched,
texture, textual,
tatterdemalion.
Leonine tatters,
fringed, tasseled, embroidered, worked,
originally luxe,
touchstones, touched, obsessed, yearned, possessed,
dandelions, edible greens, puffballs,
poverty's hodgepodge,
our make-do,
thankfully dim light,
precious scraps
like poetry.