(for Pamela and Dave with
thanks for a happy afternoon
in Pt. Arena, California)

•••

Finally, the blue
after days of gray,
but the coast leans
that way at times,

gulls and buoys
together bobbing
in lacy fog, or stuck
in the thick blanket

of it. But we made
our way to the historic
lighthouse in the gray,
went inside the museum

to listen to a lecture
by a longtime counter
of seals and birds on
that coastline,

and, walking outside
afterward, there it blazed—
the deep blue of sky
under which some

of the gulls we’d just
learned about wheeled
overhead. The blue
belayed the fog as we

four made our way
to the pier surrounded
by soaring white cliffs,
a small flotilla of red

buoys arrayed like
large lozenges on
the deck, as a happy
fisherman showed off

an enormous ling cod
that took the bait. The
same kind of fish we
ate at the Pier Place

with good chowder,
as we four chatted—
while outside the fog
again swallowed the sun

on the last day of summer
and the blue with it.
But we’d seen it,
basked in it, like

the tall candlestick
of a freshly whitewashed
lighthouse that once
upon a time shined

its multi-faceted
brilliance through a
giant beehive of a lens,
across the night,

far out to sea.