Rocks like Jeffers described: hard headed, stiff witted, but not

chatterers or fools. Not easy to walk on them, but not dull either.

East, the mainland is lost in murk and hydrocarbon haze.

West, the last sun tints a few tentative clouds.

Yesterday I read Robert Hass’s account of the difference

between “Oh” and “O,” which was offered with utter confidence

and matched my own views not at all. The heat is supposed

to break tomorrow. A family of otters prowls just offshore,

diving for dinner, staying close. The low thrum of the freighters

never quite stops. How many steps between vast calm

and total panic? When I say “Oh” I mean “O,” if Bob Hass

is around. I didn’t think I could hear the freighters at first,

and now I can’t stop listening. This long rock, like an enormous

baguette gone stale. Like a fossil finger pointed toward Bellingham

or Blaine or Mt. Baker. Like the colored pencil God threw down

when it was time to quit on the trees and make some seals

and gulls and crabs. And now the cloud bank over White Rock

has burst into color--another few miles is nothing for the sun--

and the little people-lights hug the skin of the world like God

knows what, like fireflies or deer eyes on the road, like embers

of a fire left to burn out on a windy afternoon, no rain for weeks,

the forest so dry, oh, the arbutus leaves rustling, Oh, O.