If this were Hawaii,
we’d be looking for honu
as we walk this blufftop trail.

But this is California’s central coast,
where kelp forests shimmy under
the surface of the sea, not turtles,
though a few slender-necked
cormorants on the hunt pop up,
then dive to surface again.

We take it slowly and pause often,
which is easy when so many views
command the eye, literally stopping
us in our tracks—

from the sleeping seal doing
an excellent imitation of driftwood
on the beach of the aqua agua cove
below to squadrons of pelicans
overhead arrowing north.

At the base of Bird Rock, where
today no avian committees meet
and preen, a park docent with
an angled scope invites walkers
like us to pause, bend, and look
through the giant eye to see
what ours cannot—

two otters gyrating in a slender
channel of deep blue. And—bonus!—
two more hauled out on rocks,
sleeping close like small, fuzzy seals.

“That’s unusual,” muses the docent,
since otters prefer to sleep in the sea,
wrapping themselves in kelp fronds
to keep from drifting, dozens floating
in a raft of fur, whiskers to the sky,
some sleeping paw to paw.

This strikes us as an excellent idea,
knowing that our raft waits nearby
in a room with a view that stretches
to the horizon—two shades of blue
divided by a thin ribbon—

where we can hear the cries of gulls
and make like napping otters,
floating on waves of dreams,
hand in hand.

•••

(For Dick, with my thanks for this perfectly timed getaway
to some of the prettiest coast in our fair state.)