Those Boulders!
A big black bumblebee with yellow stripes
sizzles past my ear and then cavorts,
playing peekaboo in thick ice plant.
Surfers at Lovers Point paddle
to hook haymakers out beyond where
waves cascade over rough rocks.
Cypress getting old: many dead branches.
Its knotty twisted limbs coated with
dank moss, beneath a verdant canopy.
Across the bay power plant stacks
tower. The whole crescent coast
cloaked in a thin tan haze.
Seagulls’ web feet make explicit
impressions in wet sand. Oh how water
foams as it pummels those boulders!
Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry and interviews have appeared in Nimrod, Portland Review, Kestrel, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg, Boston Poetry Magazine, Gertrude, The Bacon Review, and many others. He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.
A big black bumblebee with yellow stripes
sizzles past my ear and then cavorts,
playing peekaboo in thick ice plant.
Surfers at Lovers Point paddle
to hook haymakers out beyond where
waves cascade over rough rocks.
Cypress getting old: many dead branches.
Its knotty twisted limbs coated with
dank moss, beneath a verdant canopy.
Across the bay power plant stacks
tower. The whole crescent coast
cloaked in a thin tan haze.
Seagulls’ web feet make explicit
impressions in wet sand. Oh how water
foams as it pummels those boulders!
Thomas Piekarski is a former editor of the California State Poetry Quarterly. His poetry and interviews have appeared in Nimrod, Portland Review, Kestrel, Cream City Review, Poetry Salzburg, Boston Poetry Magazine, Gertrude, The Bacon Review, and many others. He has published a travel guide, Best Choices In Northern California, and Time Lines, a book of poems. He lives in Marina, California.