Yesterday evening, the tide high,
a couple, or three, gray whales
spouted and rolled near shore.
One at a time a great fin
rose, dripping sea, toward sky
from a wide thorax on its side.
Now, afternoon, on that broad
muddy stretch where sea’s ebbed
lie the gouges the submerged
fins scooped to loose the ghost
shrimp—oval ponds, far
up and down beach as we can see,
each silver mirror of cloud cover
like another unblinking earth’s
eye the night’s tide’ll close over.
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Photo by Guille Possi.
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