The Grunion Are Running

The Grunion Are Running.

         And So Are We

                   Only

     Heading Out To Sea

            Ponderously

              

                 I

It's easy to believe that

This is all there is.

Isn't it.  The sun

Comes up, and goes down

                         again

And again, and again…

                           yet

Who knows

What may happen

In the future

Since the future

Hasn't happened yet.

Has it??

                 II

December 22nd, 2013.

               Long Beach

California.  I spent

The late afternoon

On the beach

Proper

In the waning sun.

             (Or to say

Correctly now 

Waxing; having reached

Its limit

In dwindling

Seemingly

For the year

And tracing now

Its way

Ponderously

Back

To where it started

Before it began

Its journey.)

             Wading in

To my feet.

            Sending out

What good energy I have

                     to share

              to help heal

The Pacific Ocean

And all who dwell therein

And thereon

          for their livelihood

From the aftermath

Of Fukushima.

                     Nations

Casting their nets

Widely;

          having consequences

Far from their home bases.

           Like us

Individually?…..

                              A man

          is sleeping

     under a blanket

Near a large flock

Of seagulls,

                     sunning

Themselves, facing

The sun.

As I am too,

               on my return

From my holy ablution.

                            Oh.

               Disregard

My earlier report:

                It's a couple,

         stirring  

From their state 

Of somnolence

And emerging

Like Venus, rising.

And stirring, too, is

A grand ocean liner,

               sheltering

       nearby,

Signaling its flock

A timely warning:

                      time

      to get back

Soon.

Which they know of

Precisely

                 from their

                 specific

                 calling…

 Some of the gulls

           are fishing

For their dinner now.*

What is it.

Grunion?

Slippery; silver; small…

Whatever.

It will do

Them

       for a meal…

       thoughts drifting  by

       to dip in

       and catch one

       at random.

Like a grunion:

I have spent a night

On the beach, too

Sleeping, when

All of a sudden

I was surrounded

By people

And grunion, thrashing

On the sand

On one of their their periodic

Moonlit runs…

That was - when.

         The late summer

Of '55.

              Man alive…

At a time when

     the moon

And the sun

Were drawing me out

Of my comfort zone

Too;

     to make a run for it

On God's green Earth

And blue.  Running

                 to

         wherever

It led me to.

And here I am.

Some 58 years later

                  flapping

On the same beach

(or near enough

to be the same

in point of actual fact).

That was when

I was twenty-one;

          just entering

My majority...  

           ...And now

        I am old

And gray.

               Yet, still

         on the run

Anyway.

For that is who I am

              and craving

        to fly

               out of reach

Of my enemy.

             Which is Time.

Past, present, future

            when all I want

Is the majestic Now.

              III

The sun draws near

To the end of its day

At our place in it.

Growing cold.

               Time to go -

Where? - for now:

In
     for more of the same

          when -

I can hardly believe it:

             It's the same

       Oriental woman -

                           light

As a feather - going for

Her obviously daily swim

     as I observed

     in passing

     in the summer.

Brrr.

             Now that

        is a sense

Of duty!

       

            …and the liner

Makes its slow and ponderous way 

Out to sea.

             Doing its thing

In its way, too.

             IV

I am strangely moved

By it all

                 know

That I will get my call

When it is my time, too.

                 Though

I must confess:

I can hardly wait.

           ---

* And speaking of

Are the cranes 

Big, unloading contraptions

Near the ocean liner,

                            looming

Like prehistoric monsters,

                   lined up

Against the skyline, waiting

For their dinner.

                   All here

Is kill

Or be killed.  

It's a funny old place.