WALKING PACIFIC COAST TRAIL
I appear poised
like a pelican
scattering my spirit
into voices of sand.
The Pacific chooses to go on,
bringing messages that taste of salt.
At the edge of this slender sweep,
I translate the syllables of mermaids
nervously lamenting in a tantrum of seaweed.
From the Pacific I hear
my own departure trumpet
into a separate moment,
a bridge I can cross over,
a beginning for my life
to drink from.
From the Pacific the middle of life
holds a candle in a wind of echoes.
Into my life whales pass
after years of captivity
knowing the way homeward.
In the distance the celestial bear
Lights the way to the moon,
and I can never go back
from the way I came.
Photo by Dean Drumheller, Rio Mulatos, Bolivia, 1994