Big Surf at Bob Creek and Dream Animals (Two Poems and a Video)

Peter and I had a fabulous day at the beach last Sunday. I’ve posted a couple of poems and a short video here to celebrate.

Surf at Bob Creek

About a million seagulls in hover-hold

over Bob Creek; about a million more

duck-diving salt water out of wings

down in fast-moving fresh water creek.

Sun beating down on high, turbulent

surf throwing its waves back like

about a million wild colts

in the spring when you’re up there

in the Kiger Range and you see them

running in a herd of young’uns, five

colors of blowing, tangled mane,

tails flying like spindrift blown

back off the big surf at Bob Creek.

Fish crows bucking winter wind like

Steens Mountain ravens riding

hot summer thermals down Big Indian Gorge.

–Sandy Jensen

Jan. 24, 2010

Dream Animals

Sunset over Baker Beach

where the protected plover

hides its spotted eggs in the sand;

where on my fiftieth birthday we rode

stable horses on the beach

and I gave my black horse his head

and he charged the in-coming waves.

I still feel the lift of the sea

as we rose up

on the incoming wave.

One night at Baker Beach

a black bear

came down out of the hills

and crossed the road

like a dream animal,

giving us fair warning of the wild,

which is all around and never further

away than the clack of claws

on asphalt.

The shuddering mist claims

what once was a fair day,

and all the light is falling

into the golden sink of the West.

–Sandy Jensen

Jan. 24, 2010