Puget Sound in Fog
Flag drooping, wet, barely moving,
Tide out past the buoys;
The boat tipped,
Waiting water.

Drizzling mist of fog descending
No horizon but the pebbled sand
Herons move grayly in slack water
Hunting fish.

Ragged shoreline stretches to invisibility,
Battered logs, shells, a trillion broken things
Rest in exhaustion, uncaring,
Responding to unceasing chaos.

Tides rising,
Tides falling,
Delivering,
Destroying,
Grinding,
Removing,
Renewing,
Mo­ving to the pull
of earth
and moon
and universe.