Between stranded jellyfish, hardening kelp,
gnarls of bone-white wood and a tanker
stacked in red and white containers six deep,
cormorants and hooded mergansers and one
grebe dive and bob, dive and bob, utterly
oblivious to waves and foam.
There should be a lesson here, in capitalism
or some other -ism, or perhaps a lesson
in frivolity. Plunging, chugging, lying still
beached and sand-blown. Everyone here
leaves prints in the sand, slight marks of attention.
And then, with wind or tide, the prints are dragged
away. Overhead, jets leave contrails.
At night Starlink floats by, its worry bracelet
of lights asking nothing of anyone, leaving
no trace. Somewhere at any moment
someone writes words to someone else.
How to not be oblivious, how to listen.
