THE CLIFFS OF MARROWSTONE ISLAND

THE CLIFFS OF MARROWSTONE ISLAND
       —for Michael Daley, and for Kathleene West

In the air, the overbearing odor of salt tang
hangs over the bleached gray logs in the sand.

A breeze stirs the water on the empty cove.
The watered silk patterns embroidered with bull kelp
bobbing like the heads of otters.

A breeze stirs the water on the cove
the mast of a sailboat pierces the gray sky.

Mount Baker rests against the shrouded sky.

White T-shirts on young boys,
their muscles rippling like water.

The Cascades and Coast Mountains meet head on,
collide, and form into islands.
The Cliffs of Marrowstone Island rise up
like the sides of beached whales.
Indians are carving totem poles once again.

Argillite frogs with discrete price tags
bark out place names,
Dosewallips, Sequim, Sequim.

A diver walks down to the water
to throw back the day's catch.

Seagulls quarreling like old men
dive for the returned fish.

Bull kelp is rotting in the cove.

A tired poet friend said to me
I am a fisherman's wife.

I am the wife of a fisherman waiting at home.
I have taken up knitting.

I am tired of writing.

A breeze ripples the silken waters on the cove.
I met a man whose real name was Don John
or John Don. Either way, he writes.
He is a ghostwriter.

A patch of blue opens up like an eye.
The sky imitates the blue of glaciers
and the hidden eyes of the north people.

The sea is so quiet.

No tongues lapping at the shore.

These are the Straits of San Juan de Fuca.

If I sleep here on the beach tonight,
 will the water know the coast is but a thin line?

7/10/1981
Port Townsend, Washington
added 10/16
slight revision/line breaks