—after lucille clifton
the estuary opens to the bay
and the bay stretches into the pacific and so on
therefore and such-and-such,
none of them empty or full
in the way no frame can minimize nor contain horizon—
yet the ocean can be it, even when sky
and sea are the same late summer gray
they blend together erasing, making
each other. the humpback whale
breaching the slate screen is the only
one who knows the tension between.
here arrive two children winding bikes
on the path to the point passing succulents
and ground squirrels, and three pelicans
follow in spinning dives to slash
down on this estuary guarded
by gurgling sea lions. the children
collecting rocks and examining mussel shells,
millennia in their hands, nod to each other and laugh
racing childhood to the pier’s edge.
Copyright © 2025 by David Maduli. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on April 14, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
