Both furthest north & furthest west
in all of America, we drove
through pouring rain

A sign on the side of the road
read Beach 1

After days of driving, driving
through Washington, Oregon,
we arrived at a beach we never intended to find

The beach where water flowed
in streams across the sand,
where a family of seals
swam close to shore, playing,
disappearing into the flat & endless water

I saw a bald eagle for the first time
as we drove through Washington,
I watched it fly above us through the window
clouded with raindrops,
I thought I felt patriotic for a minute or two

Though I’m neither birdwatcher nor patriot,
the solemn bird left me
with a strange feeling, which I realized wasn’t patriotism--
the strength & bitterness in the bird’s eyes
and its steady, prideful flight
belonged to no country

The feeling returned to me
on this beach of another world,
or of this world before it was

The feeling was that it was good to be alive
and that I would change nothing
about my existence,
A thousand agonies were worth enduring
to have seen that bird
and the first of all beaches

When the sky is brilliantly dark,
when freshwater penetrates driftwood, joins
the ocean on the first
and only necessary beach:
Yes, it is good to be alive

Wooden woman waiting outside of a grocery store
in North Berkeley

Made tired by time,
chips of wood had fallen in masses from her body,
entire aspects of her anatomy had eroded away--
most of her nose, her left ear,
her right cheek, her *******, half her stomach

She had been a tree,
torn apart, reassembled
in the form of a female human being,
no sign of life in her sightless gaze

I guess she’s gone now,
after all those years

I went to look for her
and found only an antique shop
with a peculiar name
at the address where she should have been

I would have liked to have seen her
one last time, this statue
that fascinated and frightened me as a child

I’m glad she’s gone, though--
She resemble less and less a woman,
was becoming clearly merely wood
cut into tiny pieces and glued together

She resembled less and less a woman,
and I’m glad she was killed
before she ceased to be art