Pelican commuters fly
South to their night homes
Flock after flock 10, 21, 45,
100’s, 1,000+?
Mostly flapping, often soaring
Elegant and efficient flyers
Pterodactyl heads
Maneuvering like boat rudders
Do they have relatives in the flocks
I watched for decades
At the tip of Baja California by El Tule arroyo?
I think of the pelicans of Bahia de Los Angeles
Lined up on the morning
shore of an island
Webbed feet inches from the water
Each with equal elbow room between its neighbors
Watching me motor by in a small boat
Their heads one by one tracking me
Wondering if I have any fish for them
Or thinking ancient dinosaur thoughts?
A single pelican does a 180 back to the north
Flying against the flocks all headed south
Maybe wanting another fish meal before dark?
Or searching for a flock mate?
Wanting to be Johnathon Livingston seagull
Doing something different?
Below the pelicans inches from the ocean
Wave after wave of tiny seabird flocks
Pointy small beaks, short necks
Fast and frantic flappity flapping
Tiny black mysterious outlines with the setting Sun behind
I wait for the green flash as the Sun sets
Sea lions talking all at once
Barking about their day
Barking about the coming night
Bark, bark, bark and bark some more
Mist begins to rise from the shore
No more flashing Sun from house windows
On the Santa Lucia Mountains behind us
Point Sur Rock miles away blends into the darkening mountains
**
Time see-saws back and forth
I pick out in the last light
Layers of sediments along a trail
Sand, smooth river rocks, clay dust, and gravel
Once all above in the mountains 55 Million years ago
I look for sea otters
Curling into the kelp for the coming night
Here for perhaps as long as 65 million years
A gray hard rock under my feet was once
Orange red bright like the setting Sun
Plumes of magma rising to the surface 80 million years ago
The bell tolls at the Carmel Mission
A wavering sound bounced between sea and shifting air
Only since June 3, 1770
Hearing tourists speaking languages from around the world
Echos of the long gone otter hunters and whalers
All seeking the California Dream
**
Why have I never been here before?
This place til today was always a whiz-by
Blasting by in a car to somewhere else
We humans wait silently in small groups or alone
Socially distanced, Bat Flu masks at the ready
Staring in the chill at the setting Sun
The Sun sinks below the Pacific Ocean
Time stands still
This day here and now
One last solar flare
At the Sun's 11 o’clock edge
A blast of solar wind
Silently racing somewhere
The last pelican commuters fly by fast
Their mysterious tiny seabird shadows far below
Racing to night roosts
The waxing gibbous Moon rises behind the mountains
A ghostly white turns bright yellow
I pick out the Sea of Tranquility
Remembering finding it with my Dad
Through branches of an old walnut orchard tree
The night Neil and Buzz slept there July 21, 1969
I spread out my arms wide
Fingertips touching the Moon and the fading dusk
Point Lobos
Sea Lion Cove
Alta California
