Cobble Beach

On a tip from the waitress at the cute little

fancier-than-we’re used-to restaurant on the bay,

when we’re done eating the cheapest thing on the menu

and watching the trawlers chug out to sea, my mother and I

speed out to Yaquina Head, eager to see the tide pools

and the things that might be creeping about in their depths. 

A guard booth stands beside the winding road 
that leads to the beach, but this late in the day
no one is stationed there. A sign states 
that the entrance fee to the park should be placed 
in an envelope and slipped through a slit

in the door:“We operate on the honor system.”

My usually honest mother shocks me 
by gunning the engine

and zooming through without paying.
 
We park beside the lighthouse that stands

silhouetted against the setting sun

like the picture on the cover of some

religious tract or self-help tome.

The air is golden but a burning-cold wind runs its nails

through the Queen Anne’s lace bowing just beyond the guardrails.
The panoramic view of the cove is postcard-perfect.

We tramp down a steep flight of wooden stairs

to the base of the cliffs where a curly-haired college girl

huddles with a paperback, poorly paid to keep watch 
over the pools of  invertebrates exposed 
by the retreating  tide.
The rocks are round and smooth as Spaldeens,
heavy and black and knocking loose beneath our feet.

We slide carefully down to the water’s hem,

the high crags behind us shielding us from the lashing wind.
Yellow plastic signs mark the boundaries beyond which
you’re not permitted to venture.
 
Rocky outcroppings jut from the water just off shore,

clusters of boulders whitewashed with gull droppings,

constantly massaged by the waves’ gentle lapping.

My mother points to one of these tiny islands and says

she thinks she sees a bunch of white seals out there.

I laugh at her, prepare to mock her failing eyesight, 
then realize she’s right; lounging about on the rocks

are a dozen or so seals, whiter than soap or bleached bone,

white as roly-poly little ghosts.

They are too far out. I want them to swim to shore,

want to be able to stand a few steps away from them,

want an encore of the performance at the bird enclosure

at the aquarium earlier that day,

where a common murre waddled right up to me,

cocked its head and looked as if to pierce my shoe 
with its sharp, black beak 

before turning around and diving into the pool,

where it swooped for a long, long time beneath the surface  

like an aquatic bat snapping up sardines.

I don’t need to touch these creatures,

but I feel a strange need to be noticed by them,

as if I don’t fully exist until seen by some wild beast.

My mother’s concern, however well-intentioned,

is not enough, nor smiles from pretty strangers

clutching paperbacks. No, I want that connection

to some animal, something alive but non-human,

something aside from the pulpy lime-green anemones

and purple starfish clinging desperately

to the rocks at my feet. I want to be

acknowledged by these plump Buddhas,

white as ivory, with black eyes and noses,

lounging contentedly on their island,

still as statues as they bask

in the golden glow of enlightenment.

I want them to bestow upon me their blessing.

But we are too far away for them to pay us any mind.

And so, after spying on them for a time,

distant worshipers, we grow bored,

and when the girl tramps out to collect the yellow signs

and chase away the few human stragglers

we clomp up the steps (where signs admonish us

not to take home any cobbles)

and shiver, exposed once more to the cutting wind,

then drive back to the warm motel room,

from the window of which

we can just barely catch,

burning red with the sunset,

a glimpse, a tiny sliver, of the sea.