Poetry
Elizabeth Austen
Overhead, Underfoot
Useless Bay, Whidbey Island
sandpipers clean the beach, one
flea at a time the wrecked
boat bleached anonymous herons
disperse like sentries along the tide line
tail without its rabbit a fortune
in sand dollars twice each day
the sea pretends to give back
what it takes I walk from here to there
here to elsewhere scraps of music
float across the marsh once was lost
blind but now are you hiding
or are you always on the move a flock
of terns, scattering, gathering
shifting wordless on the wind
Where Currents Meet
Cattle Point, San Juan Island
See? Even at slack water a churn
of contradictions. Stay back, instinct
instructs. But from here, more beauty than danger.
Water is its own gravity, light
itself a lure. Lean in to the patterned
motion, ripples to the north, standing waves
to the south, the steady shove—
toward what? Chaos that comforts? Nothing here
is expected to make sense—contrary
intentions, even the charts
predict this. An improvisation
under the surface, revealed
by the interplay of light: water
with texture. Whatever invites attention
prayer enough for now. You could wait your whole
life for sense to take shape. Does it matter,
from here, whether those are seals or
bull kelp? Keep looking.