Gualala Musings

Pattern and the Pacific

we are creatures of pattern, 

from the DNA that is us at the designer level,

to the seasons, to the day, to our roads and buildings,

to what we see with our eyes as familiar,

and what sticks out, different, to be learned form,

at first we can passively receive input,

our brains awash in color and shifting form,

till we slowly learn to differentiate, to individuate,

and we can become actors within the drama of our lives,

all of this comes to me 

as I sit at the coast in Northern California,

shaded by Western Red Cedar

with the great Pacific Ocean a hundred yards away:

a leaden green to slate blue,

all flecked out with white caps from the wind,

like a plenitude of small sailboats all over its surface,

a finger of rock holds against the crashing surf before me,

I sit where Gualala Bluff reminds the ocean it can be resisted,

and the ocean reminds the Bluff that it can not and will not endure,

sea gulls cut into the wind and use Bernoulli’s principle for their own ends,

a bank of fog lines the horizon 

as the brilliant sun slips toward the edge of our world,

one reason I write poetry is that I want to listen to the world

until I can hear the songs it is singing,

see the patterns it is revealing,

I need to feel where I am is new,

even if I’ve been here before,

I want to be awake and to notice,

for way too soon we will not be in the moment

that will easily go on without us. 

by Henry H. Walker

August 9, ’15