I was visiting after moving away
about a year ago.
We sat in Owen’s dingy room,
smoking and drinking that nasty port
he liked, and I had an inspiration–
“You want to drive out to the coast?”
It was only about a mile away,
but his legs were swollen with fluid
and didn’t carry him so well anymore.
I knew he probably hadn’t been, in years.
He stroked his thick white beard,
thought about it, then said, “Let’s do it.”
He groaned as he climbed into my VW Bus
with a little push from me,
and a few minutes later
we were driving down that washed out
dirt road towards the headlands
at the mouth of the Noyo River.
I parked near a cliff’s edge
and killed the engine.
It was a clear and gusty day;
bright sun and lots of whitecaps.
Ocean and sky almost painfully blue.
We sat watching the waves
gnaw at the rocks below,
same as they’d done
since long before anyone was around
to point and say “ocean”
or “waves” or “rocks.”
“There she is,” he said.
He pointed toward the horizon.
“Look, from here you can see
the curvature of the Earth.”
He made a little arc
with his weathered hand.
“I see that,” I said.
We sat in silence, then.
Two men, lost in thought,
sitting motionless in a shared space
yet each wandering alone
through a wilderness inexpressible.
After awhile he sighed and I asked,
“What do you wanna do now?”
He stared off again
toward the curved horizon.
He again traced its arc with his hand
and seemed a little sad.
But after a moment he looked over
and with a broken-tooth grin,
and a sparkle in his eye, said–
“Let’s hit a bar uptown,
check out the broads.”