An armada of high clouds sails down the coast.
Below that a line of fog, a ghost train.
From far out, great waves rumble toward the shore.

Young men wade out too far;
children play at the shoreline as if no one had ever told them, 
Never turn your back to the sea.

At Salmon Creek last year a woman walked her dog at evening
as she often did. The morning waves returned their swollen bodies, 
kept their souls.

John liked to surf here at Salmon Creek,
always went out on New Year’s, no matter how cold.
The waves are wild today; no one is out.

Everything looks the same but keeps changing,
beautiful and ancient: the small boats heading out;
the fishermen with long arched poles.

In Bodega, by the narrow, white-spired church, 
the single grave: a cross, a teapot filled with flowers
for Elizabeth, 32 years, 9 months and 4 days old in 1862.

In the store across the road, the antique bottles,
the crystal wine glasses etched with roses. Somehow, they survived
all the rolling uncertainty, all the sad lovely tumult.