After the Big Sur Storm
Thunder scoured the peninsula,
cypress bending beneath its hush, then roar.
Tide-line filled with wreckage:
bull kelp wrung out, barnacles cracked
like teeth of some ancient leviathan.
Next morning, we walk the ridge trail,
boots sinking in mud‑sludge,
sea a churned mirror, gray as ash.
Gulls wheel in the calm,
foam lacing the bluffs like spun silver.
Transitions live here:
in storm’s relinquishment, debris reshaped,
chaos folding back into clarity.
I find a feather: gray‑white, a gull’s wing‑tip.
Pocket it. Perhaps it flies, perhaps stays.
The cliffs recede, surf resets;
as a doctor, I’ve watched bodies bruise,
budge toward scar, return toward strength.
Under silver‑light sky, the peninsula leans back
into itself; gulls reclaim tidepools,
I reclaim the horizon of my eyes.
Storm passes. We walk on,
horizon widening, feet dry, heart unburdened.
David Anson Lee, MD, is a physician and poet whose work explores vision, identity, and liminal spaces. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and currently living in Texas, he spent fourteen years in California, where the landscapes of Monterey and Big Sur deeply shaped his sense of place. His poetry draws on his Native American heritage, medical experience, and the natural world, reflecting on transformation, resilience, and the thresholds between worlds.
Thunder scoured the peninsula,
cypress bending beneath its hush, then roar.
Tide-line filled with wreckage:
bull kelp wrung out, barnacles cracked
like teeth of some ancient leviathan.
Next morning, we walk the ridge trail,
boots sinking in mud‑sludge,
sea a churned mirror, gray as ash.
Gulls wheel in the calm,
foam lacing the bluffs like spun silver.
Transitions live here:
in storm’s relinquishment, debris reshaped,
chaos folding back into clarity.
I find a feather: gray‑white, a gull’s wing‑tip.
Pocket it. Perhaps it flies, perhaps stays.
The cliffs recede, surf resets;
as a doctor, I’ve watched bodies bruise,
budge toward scar, return toward strength.
Under silver‑light sky, the peninsula leans back
into itself; gulls reclaim tidepools,
I reclaim the horizon of my eyes.
Storm passes. We walk on,
horizon widening, feet dry, heart unburdened.
David Anson Lee, MD, is a physician and poet whose work explores vision, identity, and liminal spaces. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and currently living in Texas, he spent fourteen years in California, where the landscapes of Monterey and Big Sur deeply shaped his sense of place. His poetry draws on his Native American heritage, medical experience, and the natural world, reflecting on transformation, resilience, and the thresholds between worlds.
