We spent Labor Day weekend in Cambria. On Saturday, we drove down to the little beach town of Cayucos to walk our dogs on the beach. The holiday brought out crowds of tourists, but we were more interested in the other crowds that gathered. This is what happened.
Cayucos
Morning finds this sleepy beach town waking
To the calling of gulls on the strand
But this day lures more than the usual inhabitants
Something is running just beyond the breakers
The cormorants know, and the seals
Their congregations swell as the service begins
Then dolphins circle, riding the cresting seas
Triangle fins and arched backs rising
Above the swells and beyond the bands of gulls
Soon the air fills with graceful pelican echelons
These master fishers claiming a full share
Of the feast God provides below the cerulean surface
A thousand pelicans surf the air and ride the waves
Until one folds and dives into the sea
Then rises to float by the gulls, beak swollen with success
More brigades of pelicans cast shadows on the sand
As alongside floats another monarch of air
A single osprey, patterned wings slicing through the sky
Copyright © 2009 Mary Beth Watt. All rights reserved.
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Dear Mary Beth, Thank you for your lovely poetry. You have given me the yearning again to get back to writing poems myself.
ReplyDeleteI stopped doing it a while ago-I thought there was something greener out there-that I could love more-So I tore myself away
Ignoring the tears-the ragged edges left-I thought they would heal over-disappear-let me go on with my new love-watercolors? weaving? witchcraft? but they scarred, leaving a hard ragged cicatrix-deep roots clutching into my soul
I'm told it's best to cut it out-hope the new scar heals smooth
But I like to trace the gnarled bony ropes with my fingertips-remembering the wordlove I almost let go-the sweet juice of rhyme and half rhyme- racing now with the freedom of new verse, bittersweet and sharp, fruit of my loins once empty now turgid with new birth-no longer needing perfect
Excited by the half done, the incomplete, the wet clay, the promise
Thanks you,Love, Regina