After a night of tortured sleep,
I leave the others to walk
Along the coast, just above Highway 1.
Through the morning mist,
Two silhouettes come into focus.
Two cormorants, perhaps,
Engaged in a romantic display,
But human voices seem to carry
Through the fog, echoing against
The coastal cliff. I become convinced,
Against reason, that these are angels,
Perhaps sent with a message of enlightenment.
I’m giddy, and I try to make out the words
That might make an insufferable existence
Worthwhile after all, but the language fails me.

I can only tell the larger of the angels seems
To be shouting his desperation, or warning,
or even despair, but his words are swallowed
by the wind and fall with a thud on the coast.
The smaller angel seems locked in vertical climb,
Racing to heaven on wings that slowly dissipate.

Surely his ascension is at hand.
But in agonizing beauty, this wingless
Creature begins a rapid descent,
Followed by a forlorn father
Racing to the depths of a pacific
And welcoming sea.

The sun is now high above the horizon,
The mist is burned off, and the village
Welcomes a clear day with hopes
For a bountiful catch and an ignorant
Faith in its own unrevealed destiny.