Heceta Beach Rain Agates |
Time folds green over
each line of dissolving surf.
When I was a child, the sky was this soft with rain. |
Headlands reared up dark
as horses over rushing creeks
entering the sea
like me
after a long run
through clear cuts
& old growth red cedar.
|
Pelicans like synchronous
pterodactyls circle
the sanctuary of birds.
|
I have always found myself
in Heceta’s black sea cave,
walls streaked down acid green
with algae; white guano splatter.
Boom of surf and now
as then
in & out
of the surf line of time,
one agate is mine.
Today,
translucent blue like
old glass,
layered in the matrix
of hard sediment.
This agate is about time
and the Pacific surf.
childhood and the Cascades.
Vultures hung out for the night
sway on their roost tree
like heavy, dark jewels,
shoulders rounded into themselves:
All my agates are about life.
All my agates are about death.
Some agates are left for a life of looking
on the rich clam flats and pools
that rise and fall between the tides.
-Sandy Jensen
June 12, 2011
Happy birthday to Cheryl and Lisle!
just a little late to snap to your June 12 Agate gift. However, it is a tradition in our family to drag out the gift giving as long as possible! This photo essay has a nostalgic, somewhat poignant feel to it.I sense that it looks back in time but also forward in time. Deeply familiar grounding detail take me right there. Thank you for the on time birthday gift collected late by me.