Pamela’s on the noon to 2 shift today,
sunny and breezy, coolish on the bluff
overlooking both sections
of Tidepool Beach.

She doesn’t mind: She’s bundled up
against the chilly wind, which
two days ago when I was here
blew warmer on this bluff,
spring bringing a mixed bag
of weather conditions, as it does
on the California coast.

Down on my favorite beach,
currently inaccessible as a harbor seal
rookery/napping spot, three new
mamas and babies sleep, sun-dried
into sand-colored torpedoes,
though one is dalmatian spotty.

I get a good look through Pamela’s binocs,
which she uses to count the harbor seals
arrayed on both beach and on far rocks
like barnacles, looking rock-like themselves
until one moves a head or flippers.

The seal docents keep watch over
their pinniped neighbors all day,
every day, for the months when
the mothers occupy the beaches,
giving birth and tending the young
till they’re weaned, then disappearing
into the waves, leaving behind
bereft offspring.

The babies’ cries are hard on
the docents, too, most of them
having done their stints as moms,
but they are here to ensure that
clueless humans don’t disturb
the new families, that they have
a safe place to rest.

We all need such spaces, in a world
where they are sometimes hard
to find, I think, as I watch Pamela
count and send good juju
to those napping on the sand,
in the water, on the rocks,
big and small,

the been-there encouragement
of one who has tended little ones,
who knows what it is like when
they will, all too soon, set off
on their own journeys,

making their way across
the shallows, into the deep,
through the rough and tumble
of the sea.

•••

With thanks to and admiration for the Harbor Seal
Rookery Docent Program, originated and still lead by
Laura Yale of The Sea Ranch, California, for the past 30 years.

And with gratitude to my friend Pamela (PJ) Hill,
who allowed me to sit with her during one of her
docent shifts on the bluff.